THE CARBONIFEROUS FLORA 243 



however, lead us to hasty conclusions. It is probably 

 due to the existence of conditions highly favourable to 

 fossilization. In prior or succeeding times many types 

 of plants may have existed of which we have no trace, 

 because the conditions in which they lived were not 

 favourable to the preservation of their remains in fossil 

 form. The very richness of the Coal Measure fossils is, 

 however, an excellent argument in favour of a definite 

 assurance in regard to the Carboniferous flora. Seeing 

 that Coal Measure times were so favourable to preserva- 

 tion of plant remains, we may rest assured that the 

 fossils already discovered are a clear indication of both 

 what there then was and was not of plant-life. Had, 

 say, true Flowering plants lived in that remote period, 

 plants such as the Oak or the Sunflower, their remains 

 would have lent themselves to fossilization quite as 

 easily as those of a Calamite or a Fern. The Carbon- 

 iferous fossils, indeed, give us a fairly clear vision of the 

 dominant vegetation of the Period they represent. 

 There were spore-plants, represented by the Ferns, 

 Lycopods, Horsetails, and Sphenophylls, but there were 

 two remarkable groups of seed-plants the Pterido- 

 sperms and Cordaitales. Of the higher Flowering plants, 

 the Angiosperms, there were none. The general colour 

 scheme of the Palaeozoic vegetable kingdom must have 

 consisted of tints of green, relieved maybe by touches 

 of russet ; but certainly the landscape was not beautified 

 by the bright yellow, reds, and blues of flowers as we 

 know them. The record of the rocks also helps us to 

 realize that as there were no gay flowers advertising free 

 sips of nectar by the flaunting advertisement of brilliant 

 colour, so also there were no nectar-loving insects. 



