184 



EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA. 



hibits a green and luxuriant breadth of foliage rare aiaoiig 

 the Coniferiie, — than any other living trea 



Fig. 60. I 



ALTINGIA BXCELSA (NOBFOLK ISLAND PINE). 



{From a young specimen in the Botanic Garden, Edinhurgh.) 



Beyond the Coal Measures terrestrial plants become ex- 

 tremely rare. The fossil botanist, on taking leave of the 

 lower Carboniferous beds, quits the land, and sets out to sea ; 

 and it seems in no way surprising that the specimens which 

 he there adds to his herbarium should consist mainly of Fuca- 

 cecB and Confervece. The development hypothesis can borrow 

 no support from the simple fact, that while a high terrestrial 

 vegetation grows upon dry land, only algse grow in the sea ; 

 and even did the Old Red Sandstone and Silurian systems 

 furnish, as their vegetable organisms, fucoids exclusively, 

 the evidence would amount to no more than simply this, that 

 the land of the Palaeozoic periods produced plants of the land, 

 and the sea of the Palaeozoic periods produced plants of the 

 sea. 



