CHAP, vi.] FOSSIL PLANTS. 191 



characteristic ; this is followed by a slow decline through 

 the Cretaceous age, after which the falling-off in numbers 

 is rapid, but few surviving at the present day. 



ANGIOSPEEMS. 

 Monocotyledon s . 



The earliest known representatives of the most modern 

 group of plants appear in Permian rocks, attain their 

 maximum about the middle of the Tertiary epoch, and 

 at the present day are just on the decline. 



Dicotyledons. 



Dicotyledonous plants appear about the middle of the 

 Cretaceous age, and are still evolving, being more 

 numerous at the present day than during any previous 

 period. 



It is interesting to note how comparatively soon in 

 every instance the maximum of development and exten- 

 sion in space, or geographical distribution, is attained 

 after the advent of a given group, compared with the 

 complete obliteration of the same after the maximum is 

 past. 



The following paragraph from Dr. Geikie's " Class- 

 Book of Geology " is a fitting conclusion to the present 

 chapter. 



" It is undoubtedly the greatest triumph of geological 

 science to have demonstrated that the present plants and 

 animals of the globe were not the first inhabitants of 

 the earth, but that they have appeared only as the 

 descendants of a vast ancestry, the latest comers in a 



