178 THE SCOTTISH BOTANICAL REVIEW 



liis presidential address at the Southport meeting of the British 

 Association,^ remarks: — 



"One interesting fact as regards the composition of the Jurassic 

 flora is the absence of any plants that can reasonably be identified 

 as Angiosperms. In the Wealden flora of England no vestige of an 

 Angiosperm has been found ; this statement holds good also as 

 regards Wealden floras in most other regions of the world. On the 

 other hand, as soon as we ascend to strata of slightly more recent 

 age we are confronted with a new element in the vegetation, which 

 with amazing rapidity assumes the leading role. It is impossible to 

 say with confidence at what precise period of geological history 

 the Angiosperms appeared. When the rocks that now form the 

 undulating country of the Weald were being accumulated as river- 

 borne sediments on the floor of an estuary, this crowning act in the 

 drama of plant evolution was probably being enacted." 



Sir Archibald Geikie, in his "Text-book of Geology,"^ gives a 

 general summary of the flora of the Cretaceous system throughout 

 the world, which may be quoted as follows : — 



" The Cretaceous system, both in Europe and North America, 

 presents successive platforms on which the land-vegetation of the 

 period has been preserved, though most of the strata contain only 

 marine organisms. This terrestrial flora possesses a great interest, 

 for it includes the earliest known progenitors of the abundant 

 dicotyledonous Angiosperms of the present day. In Europe, during 

 the earlier part of the Cretaceous, it appears to have closely resembled 

 the vegetation of the previous ages, for the same genera of ferns, 

 cycads, and conifers which formed the Jurassic woodlands are found 

 in the rocks. Yet that Angiosperms must have already existed is 

 made certain by the sudden appearance of numerous forms of that 

 class, at the base of the Upper Cretaceous formations in Saxony and 

 Bohemia, whence forms of Acer, Ainus, Credfieria, Salix, and other 

 dicotyledons have been obtained. Similar evidence of the appear- 

 ance of Querciis, Sassafras, Platatius, and many other dicotyledons, 

 in the midst of abundant ferns and cycads has been obtained from 

 the Lower Cretaceous series of the Spanish peninsula and the United 

 States. Still more varied and abundant is the flora preserved in the 

 Upper Cretaceous formation in Westphalia, from which many species 

 of dicotyledonous plants have been obtained belonging to the genera 

 Populus,AIyrica. Quercus, Ficiis, Credneria, Viburmifn, Eucalyptus, etc., 

 besides algae, ferns, cycads, conifers, and various monocotyledons." 



At Aix-la-Chapelle, in beds of the same age, Angiosperms are also 

 met with, including Canli?iites, Diyophylltmi, Myricophyllum, Ficus, 

 Laurophyllu7n, and several species of Pandanus. Many of these are 

 proteaceous, and recall the existing floras of Australia or the Cape, 

 where Banksia, etc., flourish, thus denoting a great diff'erence in 

 climate. 



In North Greenland, Heer discovered and described large numbers 



1 1903, 1904, p. 23 (of reprint). 



2 Pp. 1 163-5. 



