70 PAL^ONTOLOGICAL BOTANY. 



variety to the scene; wliile one gigantic species^ strikingly 

 resembling the Norfolk Island pine, might be seen towering 

 a hundred feet or more above the rest of the forest, and 

 exhibiting tier after tier of branches richly clothed with its 

 peculiar pointed spear-like leaves, the branches gradually 

 diminishing in size as they approach the apex of a lofty 

 pyramid of vegetation. Tree-ferns also in abundance might 

 there be recognised, occupying a prominent place in the 

 physiognomy of vegetation, and dotted at intervals over the 

 distant plains and valleys, the intermediate spaces being 

 clothed with low vegetation of more humble plants of the 

 same kind. These we may imagine exhibiting their rich 

 crests of numerous fronds, each many feet in length, and 

 produced in such quantity as to rival even the palm-trees in 

 beauty. Besides all these, other lofty trees of that day, whose 

 stems and branches are now called Calamites, existed chiefly 

 in the midst of swamps, and bore their singular branches and 

 leaves aloft with strange and monotonous unifomiity. All 

 these trees, and many others that might be associated with 

 them, were, perhaps, girt round with innumerable creepers 

 and parasitic plants, climbing to the topmost branches of the 

 most lofty amongst them, and relieving, in some measure, the 

 dark and gloomy character of the great masses of vegetation." 

 Hugh Miller remarks — "The sculpturesque character of 

 the nobly-fluted Sigillarias was shared by not a few of its 

 contemporaries. Ulodendrons, with their rectilinear rows of 

 circular scars, and their stems covered with leaf-like carvings, 

 rivalled in effect the ornately relieved torus of a Corinthian 

 column. Favularia, Halonia, many of the Calamites, and 

 all the Lepidodendrons, exhibited the most delicate sculp- 

 turing. In walking among the ruins of this ancient flora, the 

 pala3ontologist almost feels as if he had got among the broken 

 fragments of Italian jDalaces erected long years ago, when the 

 architecture of Rome was most ornate, and every moulding 



