342 PAL/EONTOLOGY 



5. Coniferales. These include the familiar firs and 

 pines, the yew and monkey-puzzle (A raucaria). This last 

 is now native only in South America and Australasia, but it 

 also had an almost world- wide distribution in the Jurassic 

 and Lower Cretaceous. Allied forms are Walchia (Perm., 

 rare in U. Carb.) and Voltzia (Perm.-Trias.). Coniferous 

 wood is a common object in many Jurassic and Cretaceous 

 rocks, both marine and freshwater. 



Angiospermae- A few rare remains of angiosperms 

 occur in Lower Cretaceous strata, but at the beginning 

 of the Upper Cretaceous period there was such a sudden 

 appearance of an extensive angiosperm flora in Europe, 

 that it is obvious that such a cryptogenetic flora must 

 have migrated from some other part of the- world, as yet 

 unknown. Its fossil remains are found, not in England, 

 which was then covered by a fairly deep sea, but in 

 regions like Saxony, which were close to a shore-line 

 and where sandy deposits occur in place of chalk. From 

 this time onwards, the angiosperms are the dominant 

 members of the flora everywhere. Their natural orders 

 and genera are far too numerous to be mentioned in 

 detail here. 



The possible existence of marine life provinces in 

 past times has been referred to in Chapter V. Fossil 

 plants have provided the most unquestionable example 

 of terrestrial life provinces. The flora of Devonian and 

 Lower Carboniferous times is practically the same all 

 over the world, but in the Upper Carboniferous there 

 were two sharply contrasted floras a northern flora, 

 including Lepidodendron, Sigillaria, Catamites, and many 



