LIFE 477 



types which appeared, one is a supposed forerunner of the group to 

 which tlu- giunt sequoia and the bald cypress belong. 



The most remarkable fact connected with the plant life of the 

 period was the evolution of the Glossopteris (tongue-fern), or Gan- 

 gamopteris, flora in the southern hemisphere, and its migration into 



Fii,'. 406. Walchia piniformis, a Permian omifer of Europe. 



the northern. This flora suggests that it was evolved to meet 

 the adversities of climate in and about the glaciated regions. De- 

 veloped amid adverse surroundings, if not under adverse condi- 

 tions, the flora not only took on a resistant aspect in simple outlines 

 and compact forms, but gave evidence of its vitality by spreading 

 northward into east Africa, Asia, and Europe. It reached northern 

 Russia in the later part of the Permian period, and was there asso- 

 ciated with forms typical of the European Permian flora. It is found 

 also in Brazil and Argentina. Its vitality is further shown in 

 that its descendants became a dominant feature in the Mesozoic 

 floras that followed. 



Land animals. Amphibians, which reached their climax in 

 the later portion of the Pennsylvanian period, were still abundant 

 in the early Permian ; but before the end of the period they were over- 

 shadowed by the reptiles, which were doubtless their descendants. 



While reptiles 1 probably began to differentiate from amphibians 

 earlier, the oldest certain relics of them go back but little beyond the 

 beginning of the Permian; but before the close of the period the 

 group was large and complex. At least three distinct phyla existed. 

 One of them (Pdycosauria) , pronouncedly reptilian in character, 



1 Williston, Faunal Relations of Early Vertebrates, Jour. Geol., Vol. XVII, 

 1909. 



