THE BEECH 127 



The actual details of the past history of the beeches were of 

 course infinitely more compKcated than I have sketched them. 

 All of the new species did not originate successively in one area 

 and radiate from it regularly in all directions. Each continental 

 area must have been a local center of evolution and radiation after 

 the stock had once reached it, and doubtless there were interchanges 

 between one and another parts in progress during the whole of the 

 long ages of the Tertiary period. Nevertheless the foregoing 

 sketch shorn of its unknown and confusing complexities emphasizes 

 the major features of beech evolution and migration. 



It remains for me to consider the recorded occurrences of beeches 

 during past time somewhat more fully than I have done in the 

 preceding paragraphs. The Cretaceous species have already been 

 enumerated in the paragraphs discussing the probability of Asia 

 having been the original home of Fagus and Nothofagus. The 

 Eocene species are nine or ten in number and include records from 

 Europe, Greenland, Alaska and the western United States. The 

 Oligocene species number about 14 and the records include 

 eastern and southwestern Asia, j)robably Australia, all the coun- 

 tries of Europe where plants of this age are represented, eastern 

 North America, Graham Land, Chile and Terra del Fuego. The 

 Miocene species number about 30. Fagus at this time was 

 practically cosmopolitan, being represented throughout Europe 

 and North America, particularly in the west in the Rocky moun- 

 tain province (Colorado) and along the Pacific coast (California) 

 where it has now long been extinct. It was present in Iceland and 

 Spitzbergen, in Austraha, and at several points in eastern Asia. 

 The Pliocene species number over a score and include several 

 that foreshadow forms that are present in our recent floras. The 

 records include Japan and most Pliocene plant localities in Europe. 

 In the United States where Pliocene deposits other than those of 

 strictly marine origin (and consequently lacking fossil plants) are 

 very rare, an extinct species of Fagus is found in Alabama along 

 the Gulf coast of that period. / 



Beech forests seem to have flourished in midiminished vigor 

 over most of the northern hemisphere up to the advent of the 



