Berry: MESOZOIC FLORA OF THE COASTAL PLAIN 509 
recently pointed out.* The latter fossils come from the Ceno- 
manian of Saxony, while a third form, suggestive of the Georgia 
fossils from the Cenomanian of Bohemia, is called by Velenovsky 
Aralia furcata.t 
The Georgia plant is, however, entirely distinct from any of 
these forms and it has been compared with a large amount of 
recent material such as Jatropha, Cecropia, various tropical 
Araliaceae, etc. It proves to be closest, however, to certain 
species of the genus Manzhot of Adanson and it is believed that 
the remarkably variable leaves in the latter genus furnish a satis- 
factory clue to the relationship of this Cretaceous species, since 
no other comparable modern genus has leaves with similar wavy 
margins and inequilateral rounded lobes. This relationship is 
indicated in the generic name chosen for the Georgia fossils. The 
modern genus Manihot has between eighty and one hundred 
species in the American tropics. 
An effort to picture accurately the environment of this flora is 
beset with unusual difficulties, as may be imagined from what has 
already been said. It is safe to assume that the climate was mild 
and humid, the latter being probably the most important factor 
aside from the absence of frost. That the temperature was not 
tropical in character we may assume from the manner in which 
this flora preserves its integrity when traced northward over a good 
many degrees of latitude. Judged by the facts of the present- 
day geographical distribution of plants, this flora presents an 
antipodean facies with its Eucalyptus and abundant Araucarieae, | 
but this is only another way of emphasizing its Mesozoic character, 
since the abundant evidence at our command shows that both of 
these types were practically cosmopolitan in the Mesozoic. An- 
other feature, strange in the eyes of modern plant geographers 
is the curious mingling of forms which in the existing flora are to 
a greater or less extent climatically segregated. Willows and wal- 
nuts growing with figs, eucalypts, laurels, and araucarias would 
indeed be anomalous in the present flora, but this and similar 
associations are familiar enough in fossil floras not only during 
the Mesozoic but well into the Cenozoic. 
*Rothpletz, Zeits. Deutsch. Geol. Gesells. 48: 904. 1896. 
TVelenovsky, Fl. Béhm. Kreidef. 3: 13. pl. 4. f. 1. 1884. 
