196 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



Compared with Silene noctiflora, the fossil here described has 

 a fruiting calyx of about the same size and somewliat similarly 

 ribbed ; but it is regularly narrowed into the peduncle, and the 

 peduncle shows no inflated ring. The capsule resembles that of 

 S. noctiflora, but is shorter and not umbilicate below. The seeds 

 differ greatly from those of S. noctiflora, having indented striate 

 sides with elongate tubercles— these late tubercles contrasting 

 strongly with the six rows of rounded dorsal tubercles. At first 

 sight, the seeds somewhat resemble those of S. maritima ; they 

 are very different from those of S. noctiflora, which has numerous 

 rounded tubercles not noticeably arranged in lines. 



This species ... is a striking plant, which cannot well 

 have been overlooked in the living state, and it seems to be 

 the first undoubtedly extinct form that has yet been found in 

 British PJeistocene deposits. Perhaps, like so many of the 

 European Pliocene species, it may still linger in the mountains of 

 China ; but nothing allied to it seems yet to have been discovered 

 there. . . . 



LiNUM PR^cuESOE, sp. uov. Flax-secds are abundant at all 

 four localities in the Lea Valley, and their occurrence raises a 

 very difficult question. Precisely similar seeds have been found 

 also in the Arctic plant- bed at Hoxne, in Suffolk, beneath a 

 deposit full of Acheulian implements, and a single seed has 

 been discovered at Beeston (Norfolk), at the base of the whole 

 of the Glacial deposits. In each case the flax-seeds are asso- 

 ciated with dwarf Arctic willows, and with a moss flora of 

 thoroughly Arctic character. The living Linum which they most 

 closely resemble is the cultivated L. usitatissimum, of which the 

 wild form is unknown ; they do not agree with either L. jjerenne 

 or L. angustifoliwii. But L. usitatissimum is not an Arctic 

 plant, and there is no living Arctic plant that has a seed at all 

 resembling the fossil here described. The origin of the cultivated 

 flax has been much discussed, but so far without any definite 

 result ; it is grown over great part of the world, and in no region 

 can it be said definitely that a corresponding wild form is found. 

 As a cultivated plant it is found in Eoman deposits and in the 

 Swiss lake-dweUings, seeds from the Eoman layer at Tooley Street 

 being indistinguishable from recent specimens. It escapes from 

 cultivation, but apparently never establishes itself in cold 

 countries." 



On comparing the fossil seeds here described (we have, in 

 addition, only fragments of the capsule) with cultivated seeds, it 

 is found that the only difference of importance is the narrower 

 and more oblong outline. This is a diiference which may well be 

 due to thousands of years of cultivation. If the Lea Valley 

 fossils had been found in Pleistocene deposits containing temperate 

 plants, we should refer them with little hesitation to the wild 



* See Planchon,in Hooker, Journ. Bot. vii, 165 (1848) ; 0. Heer, Die Pjlanzen 

 der Pfahlbauten, p. 35 (Ziirich, 1865) ; id. Uebcr den Flachs cO die Flachskultur 

 (Zurich, 1872); A. de Candolle, Origin of Cultivated Plants (London, 188-4). 



