LATER CRETACEOUS AND KAINOZOIC. 



213 



ciated with this species another and more delicate fern, 

 the modern DavalUa {Stenloma) tenuifoUa, but this, un- 

 like its companion, no longer occurs in America, but is 

 found in the mountains of Asia. This is a curious illus- 

 tration of the fact that frail and delicate plants may be 

 more ancient than the mountains or plains on which 

 they live. 



There are also some very interesting and curious facts 

 in connection with the conifers of the Laramie. One of 

 the most common of these is a Thuja or arbor vitae (the 

 so-called "cedar" of Canada). The Laramie species has 

 been named T. interrupta by Newberry, but it approaches 

 very closely in its foliage to T. occidentalism of eastern 

 Canada, while its fruit resembles that of the western 

 species, T. gigantea. 



Still more remarkable are the Sequoias to which we 

 have already referred, but which in the Laramie age seem 

 to have been spread over nearly all North America. The 

 fossil species are of two types, repreeenting respectively 

 the modern S. gigantea and 8. sempervirens, and their 

 wood, as well as that of Thuja, is found in great abun- 

 dance in the lignites, and also in tlie form of silicified 

 trunks, and corresponds with that of the recent species. 

 The Laramie contains also conifers cf the genera Glypto- 

 strohus, Taxodium, and Taxus ; and the genus Salishuria 

 or gingko — so characteristic of the Jurassic and Creta- 

 ceous — is still represented in America as woU as in Europe 

 in the early Eocene. 



We have no palms in the Canadian or Scottish Paloeo- 

 cene, though I belicTe they are found further south. The 

 dicotyledonous trros are richly repre'^f^nted. Perhaps the 

 most conspi'iious v ere three spt" les of Platanus, the 

 leaves of which sometimes fill the sandstones, and one of 

 which, P. nobilisy dewberry, sometimes attains the gi- 

 gantic size of a foot or more in diameter of its blade. 

 The hazels are represented by a large-leaved species, C. 

 20 



