244 PLANT-LIFE 



Dragon-Flies, some of them very large, and Cockroaches 

 seem to have been principal among the insects contem- 

 poraneous with the Seed-Ferns. Nature had not yet 

 attained to Butterflies, Moths, Bees, or Wasps. It is 

 curious that in much more recent strata — the Cre- 

 taceous — we find traces both of Angiosperms and of 

 those insects which visit them for nectar and pollen, 

 and act as pollinating agents. Insects have played an 

 important part in the evolution of entomophilous 

 (insect-loving) plants, and, on the other hand, the 

 evolution of insects must also have been affected by 

 plants which flaunt the lure of nectar. 



In the most recent Period of the Palaeozoic Era — the 

 Permian — we find signs of change; indeed, the Permian 

 Period was one of marked transition. Ferns as a group 

 held their own, as they have done even to modern times ; 

 but the other groups, so dominant in Carboniferous 

 times, began and continued to dwindle. The Conifers 

 (p. 180), dominant among modern Cymnosperms, can 

 be traced back with certainty to Permian times, and it 

 is possible that in Walchia, of which fossils of leafy 

 twigs, with a habit resembling that of certain modern 

 Araucarias, are frequently found, we have evidence of 

 Conifers in the higher Carboniferous strata. Forms 

 allied to living genera of Conifers occur in Permian rocks, 

 and these seem to have increased as the Period advanced. 

 In an age when the great Carboniferous groups were 

 waning, the Conifers were " enlarging the place of their 

 tent, "and at the same time a new group — the Ginkgo ales 

 — were coming into prominence. As I have already 

 stated (p. 233), the genus Ginkgo has now but one 



