108 GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 



abundance of the single species of Aralia and of a larger Acer 

 furnish a higher proportion of palmate leaves than we are 

 accustomed to in later Eocene strata. There are the usual simple 

 laurel and willow-looking leaves, most of which afford no 

 characters on which we can ever base any valid determinations. 

 The question as to whether there are any true Proteacerc in the 

 flora is still in suspense. There are several forms of leaves in this 

 remarkable family which are quite unmistakable, but none of" these 

 have been found fossil in Europe. Nor have any unmistakably 

 proteaceous fruits yet been discovered, even among the tens of 

 thousands that have been collected at Sheppey, where they most 

 certainly must have been met with, for the supposed Petrophiloidcs 

 is proved to be an Alder.* The Australian elements in the 

 Tertiary at one time thought to be so preponderant, grow more 

 and more doubtful when critically examined, and it appears that 

 it is rather to Central America on the one hand, and the Malayan 

 Archipelago on the other, that we must look for species nearly 

 related to those of our Alum Bay and Bournemouth floras. That 

 there are some Australasian species cannot be questioned in 

 presence of the Bournemouth Araucaria, and the Hordwell 

 Athrotaxis, but these Gymnosperms may well be of immense 

 antiquity and once perhaps universal, so that their occurrence here 

 or in Australia is of little importance. The study of Dicotyledons 

 would alone show whether any part of the existing Australian 

 flora had ever migrated across Europe or America, as the existing 

 Japanese flora has most certainly done, and that study, too long 

 postponed, will, it is to be hoped, shortly be continued in the pages 

 of the Palaeontographical Society. 



Provisional List of the Flora of the Pipe-clay of Alum 



Bay (revised by J. Starkie Gardner). 



Apeiobopsis Symondsii, De la Harpe. Ficus Bowerbankii, De la Harpe. 



Aralia primigenia, De la Harpe. Forbesii, De la Harpe. 



Ceesalpinia semula, Heer. Granadilla, Massal. 



Bowerbankii, De la Harpe. Morrissii, De la Harpe. 



brevis, De la Harpe. Grevillea La Harpii, Heer, MS. 



mollis, De la Harpe. Juglans Sharpei, De la Harpe. 



■ Salteri, De la Harpe. Laurus Forbesii, Unger. 



phaseolites, Unger. Jovis, Unger. 



Ungeri, Heer. primigenia, Unger. 



Ceropetalum myricinum, De la Harpe. — Salteri, De la Harpe. 



Chrysodium lanzseanum, Visiani. Marattia Hookeri, Eft. ^ Gardner. 



Cluytia aglaisefolia, Wess. Sf Web. Podocarpus elegans, De la Harpe. 



Comptonia acutiloba, Brong. eocenica, Unger. 



Cornus, sp. duercus eocenica, De la Harpe. 



Cupania, sp. lonchitis, Unger. 



Dalbergia Salteri, De la Harpe. Ehamnus densinervis, Heer. 



Daphnogene anglica, Heer. 3 sp. 



vei'Onensis, Massal. Sapindus, 2 sp. 



Diospyrus, sp. Smilax, 2 sp. n. 



Drepanocarpus Dacampii, Massal. Zizyphus integrifolius, Heer. 



Dryandra Bunburyii, De la Harpe. — vestustus, Heer. 



Elseodendron Heerii, De la Harpe. 



* J. S. Gardner, On Alnus Richardsoni, .Journ. Linn. Soc, vol. xx. p. 417. 



