PALEOBOTANY BEERY. 365 



and four have but one (Sciadopitys, Cunninghamia, Taiwania, Cryp- 

 lomeria). Their restricted range is also an indication of former 

 greatness. Thus Glyptostrobus is Chinese, Sciadopitys is Japanese, 

 Taiwania is confined to Formosa, Cunninghamia and Cryptomeria 

 are Chino-Japanese, Athrotaxis is Australian, Sequoia is confined 

 to the Pacific and Taxodium to the Atlantic border of North Amer- 

 ica. The family is unrepresented in Europe, South America or 

 Africa at the present time. Its fossil history constitutes one of the 

 romances of paleobotany, illustrating the antiquity, growth to cos- 

 mopolitanism, and subsequent wane of the various types. The oldest 

 known genus that appears to represent this family is the Permian 

 and Triassic Voltzia with dimorphic distichous foliage, long, slender 

 cylindrical cones of imbricated three to five-lobed sporophylls, and 

 two or three-winged seeds. There are at least half a dozen species 

 known and they are recorded from Europe, Asia, and South Amer- 

 ica, but not certainly from North America. 



Another ancient and truly cosmopolitan genus was Cheirolepis, 

 with distichous twigs, short pointed leaves and five-lobed two-seeded 

 sporophylls. A genus of doubtful affinities is Leptostrobus of the 

 Jurassic of Asia and North America, although Sequoia appears to- 

 ward the end of that period (Portlandian). In the Lower Cretace- 

 ous the more noteworthy genera are Sphenolepis and Athrotaxopsis, 

 although Sequoia is undoubtedly represented by foliage, cones and 

 structure material at widely separated localities. 



The Upper Cretaceous genera are Geinitzia, which may belong to 

 the ArauCariales; Ceratostrobus and Microlepidium, both European 

 genera; Cunninghamiostrobus, a Japanese genus based upon struc- 

 tural cone material ; Cunninghamites, which had numerous species in 

 Greenland, Europe, and North America; and Sequoia which is 

 abundant and recorded from all the continents except Africa and 

 Australia, and from Spitzbergen on the north to Graham Land on 

 the South. During the Cenozoic, especially during the older Ter- 

 tiary, Sequoia continued unabated and is recorded from all the con- 

 tinents except Africa. Athrotaxis is recorded from Europe, Cryp- 

 tomeria is found in Europe and the Arctic, while Taxodium and 

 Glyptostrobus are found everywhere throughout the Northern Hem- 

 isphere in the greatest abundance, and both genera are still present 

 in Europe as late as the early Pleistocene. 



The most obvious characteristic of the family Cupressaceae is the 

 cyclic arrangement of the reduced leaves, a feature which, acquired 

 early in their history, has continued unchanged from the Cretaceous 

 to the present. The cones are small and are hard or fleshy at ma- 

 turity. The existing genera are nine in number and contain about 

 80 species, of which 40 per cent belong to the genus Juniperus. The 



