Xvi INTRODUCTION. 
In addition to the plants already enumerated, the following 
Gymnosperms must be noted from the papers of Carruthers, 
Starkie Gardner, and others :— 
Pinites Mantelli, Carr.} beck, but the species is quoted on 
P. patens, Carr. another page of the same paper as 
? P. Fittoni, Carr. (This is described a Wealden Conifer.) 
by Carruthers as labelled from Pur- 
-In the Report on Mesozoic and Tertiary Gymnosperms presented 
to the British Association in 1886,? there is the following state- 
ment, which has not been disproved by subsequent discoveries. 
After speaking of some fossil plants previously mentioned by 
Mantell and compared to Dracena, the writer of the Report 
continues—‘‘ No other trace has been found of any more highly 
organized plants than Ferns or Gymnosperms, and this, when we 
remember that Monocotyledons were undoubtedly in existence, 
is a fact that should be of great significance to speculative 
geologists. The sediments must represent the deposits of a 
drainage system of a large area, for they are of vast extent 
and thickness, varied in character, and abounding in remains of 
trunks and stems, fruits and foliage of plants. In them, there- 
fore, if anywhere, we might reasonably expect to find, at least, 
the trace of reed and rush, but the swamps seem to have been 
tenanted only by Equisetums and Ferns, and the forests mainly 
by Cycads and Conifers.”’ 
This is especially noteworthy, as Angiosperms have been re- 
corded in floras, agreeing in their general facies with the English 
Wealden, from North America and Portugal. . 
The great majority of the specimens described in the present 
volume have been obtained by Mr. Rufford from the 
Wealden rocks in the neighbourhood of Hastings. I am 
indebted to him for the following diagrammatic section and 
brief description of the strata from which the material was 
obtained. 
1 Geol. Mag. vol. iii. 1886, p. 543. 
2 p. 2438. 
* This statement has reference to British fossils only. 
