M. De Candolle on FoMtl Vegetables. 87 



tropical climates. Many aiborescent equisetaccae would give to 

 the prospect a character very different from that of which we 

 have now any conception. The other cryptogamia are wholly 

 wanting at this epoch ; so also are marine plants, or at all events 

 they are very rare, as none have hitherto been discovered. Of 

 monocotyledons, scarcely one-fourteenth part exist, in which 

 three palms and some gramineae are found. It is known, that 

 this class now forms a sixth part of vegetables. Regarding the 

 dicotyledonous plants, the number of which is so remarkable m 

 our epoch, it is to be doubted, whether the formation of which 

 we are now speaking possesses more than a third part. M. 

 Brongniart points out 21, though somewhat doubtfully; but 

 Mr Lindley* endeavours to demonstrate that the genera Sigilla- 

 ria and St}g7naria, linked to the .Etheogameae by M. Brongniart, 

 are dicotyledons, and analogous to the Apocinese, Euphorbiaceae, 

 or Cacteae. There are 49 species of these two genera, among 

 the 258 enumerated in the Prodromus of Fossil Vegetables, so 

 that even including the 21 doubtful ones already alluded to, 

 this would only make 70 dicotyledonous species. 



\fter transposing these two genera, and then adopting the 

 four great classes proposed by M. De CandoUef, the flora of 

 coal-mines would exhibit the following results, noting the species 

 which were known in 1828 : — 



CaypTOGAME.t. 



Amphigamea. 



JEthiogamecs, Equisetacese, 

 Filices, 

 Marsileaceae, 

 Lycopodiacese, 



89 \ 

 60 -' 



170 



Proper tiou in 

 the 100 Specica. 

 



GG 



19 

 8 



100 



• Fossil Flora. Sciences et Arts, Juillet, 1834. 

 + Bibl. Univer. 1833. T. iii. (liv.) p. 259. 



