222 ON APHYLLOSTACHYS. 
the result of our imperfect knowledge of fossil plants than as opposed 
to the Darwinian theory adopted by him. My publications on the 
1 Permian Flora' would have supplied him with ample materials for cor- 
recting his imperfect knowledge ; for my somewhat comprehensive ac- 
quaintance with existing plants, justifies me in maintaining that plants 
like the Sigillarias, well-known even as to their fruiting organs, as 
well as the Calamites and Lepidodendrons, with whose anatomical 
structure we are well acquainted, did not belong to any now existing 
Natural Order. But all these matters seem to him of less importance 
than the proof of variation among plants, which, in this case, would be 
all the more telling as questions of genetic relations could not he 
raised. But I hold that our knowledge of fossil plants is amply suffi- 
cient to supply even now decided proofs to the contrary. With regard 
to the existing vegetation, I am aware that its youth as well as that of 
the allied diluvial flora will be brought forward. But a high im- 
portance must be accorded to thbse species of plants, and to the more 
numerous animals which have passed from the Tertiary period to 
our own time, and more to those plants which have existed in two 
formations, as in the Upper Devonian and the Lower Coal, or the 
Upper Coal and the Permian,— and still more to those which have ex- 
isted unaltered through three periods, as in the case of Neuroptem 
Loshii, which ranges from the Lower Coal formation through the 
Upper to the Permian, and which must be regarded, without doubt, as 
the species which has enjoyed the longest life. If we add to this the 
numerous families and genera which have remained unaltered sine 
their first appearance, so that the same characters can be used toi 
definition of the different species that occur in all the geological 
periods, it is difficult to perceive where the mutations are to be foun 
which the different species are said to have undergone. If we a s 
consider that in the very earliest times of the first land-flora certain 
groups of plants, for instance the Penis, appeared in a degree ot pe 
fection, previous to the gradual development of which an enormous, 
long range of time and numberless antetypes (which are entirely vv 
ing) would be required; and that seme groups became extmc 
very early geological periods, leaving to subsequent periods onlv 
remnants or indications of their former degree of perfection (as we J 
say with confidence of the Selaginea and Calamaria), it is clinic 
comprehend how so esteemed and eminent a botanist could tate 
