XVI 



INTRODUCTION. 



In addition to the plants already enumerated, the following 

 Gymnosperms must be noted from the papers of Carruthers, 

 Starkie Gardner, and others : 



Pinites Mantelli, Carr. 1 

 P. patens, Carr. 



? P. Fittoni, Carr. (This is described 

 by Carruthers as labelled from Pur- 



beck, but the species is quoted on 

 another page of the same paper as 

 a Wealden Conifer.) 



In the Report on Mesozoic and Tertiary Gymnosperms presented 

 to the British Association in 1886, 2 there is the following state- 

 ment, which has not been disproved by subsequent discoveries. 

 After speaking of some fossil plants previously mentioned by 

 Mantell and compared to Dracana, the writer of the Report 

 continues " No other trace has been found of any more highly 

 organized plants than Ferns or Gymnosperms, and this, when we 

 remember that Monocotyledons were undoubtedly in existence, 

 is a fact that should be of great significance to speculative 

 geologists. The sediments must represent the deposits of a 

 drainage system of a large area, for they are of vast extent 

 and thickness, varied in character, and abounding in remains of 

 trunks and stems, fruits and foliage of plants. In them, there- 

 fore, if anywhere, we might reasonably expect to find, at least, 

 the trace of reed and rush, but the swamps seem to have been 

 tenanted only by Equisetums and Terns, and the forests mainly 

 by Cycads and Conifers." 3 



This is especially noteworthy, as Angiosperms have been re- 

 corded in floras, agreeing in their general fades with the English 

 Wealden, from North America and Portugal. 



The great majority of the specimens described in the present 

 volume have been obtained by Mr. Rufford from the 

 "Wealden rocks in the neighbourhood of Hastings. I am 

 indebted to him for the following diagrammatic section and 

 brief description of the strata from which the material was 

 obtained. 



1 Geol. Mag. vol. iii. 1886, p. 543. 



2 p. 243. 



3 This statement has reference to British fossils only. 



