XXI 



vative (see Stopes & Watson, 1908) and, as is evidenced by the 

 state of many of the Lower Greensand plants, must have been a 

 perfect specific against the decay of even the finest details, yet 

 the sea journey resulted in the elimination of all the soft leaves, 

 which probably formed attractive food for fishes and molluscs. 

 It is noteworthy that in the list of species, there are only two 

 based on leaf-impressions, and these are both very scanty and 

 incomplete. The one well-preserved leaf is the minute twig 

 of Sequoia which was completely sheltered, and must have 

 travelled concealed in the larger mass of secondary tissues of 

 another plant (see pp. 70, 247). 



The species now described, therefore, represent only the 

 sturdier portions of the larger woody elements of the whole 

 flora then living. Hence it must not be assumed that herbaceous 

 plants were wanting, or even scanty at this time. Indeed, in 

 the contemporaneous Lower Cretaceous floras of Portugal 

 (Saporta, 1894) and North America, where the physical 

 conditions of deposition were different, the various types 

 of plants were in quite other proportions. Very useful 

 summaries of the Lower Cretaceous floras from all parts of the 

 world are given by Berry (1911) in his recent monograph, to 

 which reference should be made. 



As a consequence, in our deposit, the absence of herbaceous 

 plants, and in particular of herbaceous Angiosperms, must not 

 be taken to be of any phylogenetic significance. "While it 

 might at first sight appear to support the view (see Eames 

 1911, Sinnott & Bailey 1914, etc.) that the woody tree is the 

 '- primitive" type of Angiosperm, since the species described 

 above are all woody ; yet that deduction is an illegitimate one 

 to draw from the data. This in reality only proves that the 

 physical conditions of deposition were such as to prohibit the 

 preservation of the herbaceous Angiosperms which I am sure 

 were then living, and which, if I may express an unsupported 

 opinion, were probably some of several " primitive " stocks of 

 the profoundly polyphyletic Angiosperms. 



As the Angiosperms described in the present volume are the 

 earliest Dicotyledons recorded, not only for England but for 

 the whole North of Europe, and are the earliest specimens of 

 which the anatomy is known from any part of the world, some 

 discussion of the vexed question of the origin of the Angio- 



