OF CREATION. 



83 



seems to have been formed rapidly in association with 

 such vegetable remains. 



Besides these two forms, there are, however, 

 many others ; as, for instance, the SpJienopteris (fig. 

 28), and the Neuropteris* (29) ; both of them com- 

 mon, and, in all probability, belonging to the group 

 of arborescent ferns, and growing in wild luxuriance 

 on stems of greater or less altitude. Some notion 



Fig. 28 Fig. 29 



SPHENOPTERIS. NEUROPTERIS. 



may be formed of the peculiar character of such 

 vegetation by referring to the frontispiece at the be- 

 ginning of this volume, where it has been endea- 

 voured, by combining existing and analogous forms 

 with some restored forms of extinct plants, to com- 

 municate a notion, however vague, of the flora of 

 the coal period. 



Besides the arborescent ferns, then growing to a 

 great size, I might also notice the gigantic propor- 

 tions of other plants, whose modern representatives 



* These names are all derived from the peculiar form of the leaf and 

 its venation, in combination with the Greek word TrrtpiQ (pteris), a fern. 

 The derivatives are respectively TTEKW (peco), to comb; odovg gen. odov- 

 TOQ (odontos), a tooth; GI\V gen. crtyqvoQ (spAeos),awedge; and vtvpov 

 (neuron), a nerve. 



