RARE TREES IX ABBOTSBURY CASTLE GARDEXS. 191 



The flora, with which C. Sternhcrgii, is associated in the tufas 

 of Antrim and Mull, bears a close resemblance to that of the Lower 

 Cretaceous beds of Dakota, in Xorth America. It is singular that 

 this genus, which once grew and flourished in Dorsetshire, is at this 

 moment restricted to a very limited area at the other extremity of 

 the northern hemisphere. Varieties of C. Japonica have been 

 produced by cultivation, of which many diverge from the original 

 type. 



Palm. 



This is the first Monocotyledon we have had under observa- 

 tion to-day. The date of the earliest Palm is probably the period 

 of the Chalk-marl, there are undoubted proofs of it in the 

 European beds of that age, the two principal species are Flabel- 

 laria chamceropifoUa, Goepp, with leaves resembling the living 

 Chamaerops, and F. lonrjiraclns, Ung., resembling PJiomicopliorium 

 Sechellarum, "Wendl., a native of the Sechelles, inserted and 

 cultivated in our Palm-houses. This priman-al Palm is inter- 

 mediate between the fan-shape and pinnate-leaved. During the 

 Eocene Age a vegetation prevailed resembling that of Australia in 

 the present day, when the Palms were as abundant as they are 

 now. A Sabal occurs in the Eocene beds of Corfe Castle, a 

 fragment of which is preserved in the County Museum. In the 

 Oligocene age the Palms reached 51° X. lat., and in the Miocene 

 Age the latitude of Greenland. The changes through which 

 Europe and America passed during the whole of the Tertiary period 

 sufficiently account for the extinction of some species and transforma- 

 tion of others. The northern limit of the Palm is now much farther 

 south than it was at one time, the Sabal flourishes on the eastern 

 and western sides of the norlhern heniisj)hcre. ChanKcrops grows 

 at Nice in 43' ■11' N. L. There are 10 or 12 species of tliis gi'uus, 

 most of them are dwarf, but a few attain a height of abuvit oO feet. 

 Their range is very wide, extending to Northern Asia, Africa, 

 America, and Southern Europe. Tlu' leaves are i>laited like a fan, 

 the petioles usually prickly ; the leaves of the Phoenix, of wliich the 

 Date-Pahn is a species, are pinnate ; Chamcenqjs humiliti is usually 



