424 



DEVONIAN PERIOD 



fossils that some of the plants were unable to stand alone, but 

 sprawled about on the ground or clambered over other plants. Of 

 the upland vegetation nothing is known. 



The Middle Devonian flora of Maine is so like a flora of Scotland, 

 Belgium, and the Rhine provinces, as to indicate the probability of 

 the migration of land plants between our continent and Europe, 

 perhaps by way of a land bridge between America and Europe in 

 the high latitudes. The Portage flora of New York is found also in 

 Bohemia. The Upper Devonian flora was very similar from Penn- 

 sylvania to southern Europe, and this flora has something in com- 

 mon with that of Australia. Devonian fossil woods show no rings 

 indicative of seasons or long periods of drought. 



The types of Devonian plants were similar to those of the next 

 period. The dominant forms were fern-like plants, some of which 

 were seed-bearing, and the lower gymnosperms. The forerunners 

 of both lepidodendrons and sigillarias 1 were present before the close 

 of the period. Angiosperms had not yet come into existence, so 

 far as known. The forests were made up chiefly of (i) catamites 

 (Equisetales) the gigantic ancestors of the horsetails, (2) lepidoden- 

 drons, gigantic ancestors of the clubmosses, and (3) cordaites, all of 

 which were better developed later. 



The record of the lower land plants is almost negative, except 

 that, singularly enough, bacteria have been reported. The identi- 



(After Scudder.) 

 (After Scudder.) 



A B 



Fig- 373- A, Platephemera antiqua, Sc., St. Johns, N. B. 

 B, Xenoneura anliquorum, Sc. From St. Johns, N. B. 



fication of such simple forms in fossilized woody tissue of so ancient 

 a period is remarkable, though the presence of bacteria is altogether 

 probable in itself, for the record of plant life should have been more 

 perfect than it is, had decay not been promoted by bacteria. 



The general aspect of the fern-like, seed-bearing plants was 



1 For classification, see p. 685. 



