92 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



first appears. In this period also some forms occur 

 which may be related to another Gymnospermic type, 

 Gnetum. There are as yet no traces of the higher 

 Angiospermous types, at least definitely allied to them, 

 though in some of the later Jurassic beds, plants 

 referred to Monocotyledons appear. But these, like 

 the earliest plant types, are anomalous and of uncer- 

 tain affinity. The greatest interest, however, centres 

 around the Cycadaceous Bennettites, which appears to 

 be the ancestor* of our modern Angiosperms, and in 

 its turn it would seem to be in a direct line with the 

 earlier Pteridosperms or fern-like plants with seeds, or 

 seed-like structures. The embryo was dicotylar. The 

 flower was bisexual or hermaphrodite. The female 

 portion was central and the male sporophylls were 

 marginal. It is suggested that Magnolia may be con- 

 nected with the type of earliest Angiosperms to which 

 the Jurassic Bennettites gave rise. This modern type 

 is a member of the Ranales and many of them are 

 monocotylous, and the problem of the origin of 

 Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons seems to be related 

 to this problem. 



But it is in the early Cretaceous that we find that 

 both Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons suddenly 

 make their appearance, so that the connecting link 

 must have been some synthetic type {cf. the Coal- 

 measure flora) which gave rise to both. 



The Tertiary epoch is essentially the era of Angio- 

 sperms. The climate was tropical and Palms and 



* Or directly connected with it by some other Pro-Angiosperm. 



