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204 



THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



** Conifers. — Fourteen species, belonging to the genera 

 Moriconia, Brachyphyllum, Cunninghamites, Pitius, Se- 

 quoia, and others referred by Heer to Juniperus, Libo- 

 cedruSy Frenelopsis, Thuya, and Dammara. Of these, 

 the most abundant and most interesting are Moriconia 

 cyclotoxon — the most beautiful of conifers — and Cunning- 

 hamites elegans, both of which occur in the Cretaceous 

 clays of Aachen, Prussia, and Patoot, Greenland. The 

 Brachyphyllum was a large and strong species, with im- 

 bricated cones, eight inches in length. 



" The angiosperms form about seventy species, which 

 include three of Magnolia, four of Liriodendron, three or 

 four of Salix, three of Celastrophyllum (of which one is 

 identical with a Greenland species), one Celastrus (also 

 found in Greenland), four or five Aralias, two Sassafras, 

 one Cinnamomum, one Hedera j with leaves that are ap- 

 parently identical with those described by Heer as belong- 

 ing to Andromeda, Cissiies, Cornus, Dewalquea, Dios- 

 pyros, EucalyiAus, Ficus, Ilex, Juglans, Laurus, Meiii- 

 spermites, Myrica, Myrsine, Prunus, Rhamnus, and 

 others not yet determined. 



*' Some of the Aralias had palmately-lobed leaves, 

 nearly a foot in diameter, and two of the tulip-trees 

 {Liriodendron) had leaves quite as large as those of the 

 living species. One of these had deeply lobed leaves, like 

 those of the white oak. Of the other, the leaves resem- 

 bled those of the recent tulip-tree, but were larger. Both 

 had the peculiar emargination and the nervation of Lirio- 

 dendron. 



** Among the most interesting plants of the collection 

 are fine species of Bauhinia and Hymenwa. Of these, 

 the first is represented by a large number of leaves, some 

 of which are six or seven inches in diameter. They are 

 deeply bilobed, and have the peculiar and characteristic 

 form and nervation of the leaves of this genus. Bauhi- 

 nia is a leguminous genus allied to Cercis, and now in- 



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