Fune 9, 1870] 
NATURE 
Tey 
within the last few months of between five and six hundred Pro- 
teaceze, and consequent investigation of their affinities and distri- 
bution have shown that the order as a whole is one of the most 
distinct and most clearly defined amongst Phanerogams. I do 
not know of a singJe plant intermediate in structure between that 
and the nearest allied orders, which I cannot say of any other of 
the large orders I have worked upon. There is, moreover, 
especially amongst the Nucamentacez, a remarkable definiteness 
in the majority of genera without intermediate species, whilst the 
whole order exhibits the greatest uniformity in some of its most 
essential characters, derived from the arrangement of the floral 
organs and the structure of the ovary and embryo, accompanied 
by a truly Protean foliage. All this points, in my mind, to unity 
of origin, very great antiquity, and long isolation in early times. 
And the species themselves appear to be for the most part 
constitutionally endowed with what I designated in my last year’s 
address as individual durability rather than with rapidity of 
propagation. The order may be divided into about five prin- 
cipal groups, more or less definite in character, but very different 
in geographical distribution. First, the Nucamentaceze (from 
which I would exclude Andrifelatum and Guevina), which we 
may suppose to be the most ancient, and perhaps the only one 
in existence where Proteacez inhabited some land in direct com- 
munication, either simultaneously or consecutively, with extra- 
tropical Africa and Australia; for it is the only group now 
represented inthe former. It is pre-eminently endowed with the 
characteristic definiteness and durability of the order. It is 
very natural as a whole; it has about 250 species in eleven 
distinct African genera, and nearly 200 species in twelve equally 
distinct Australian genera, no single genus common to the two 
countries, and the species mostly abundant in individuals in very 
restricted localities. In both countries it is chiefly confined to 
the south. Africa sends only one or two species northward, as 
far as Abyssinia. The Australian portion has extended to New 
Zealand, where it has left a single species, now quite differen- 
tiated from the Australian ones; very few species (not half-a- 
dozen) have reached tropical Australia ; and, if ever it extended 
farther, no representatives have yet been discovered in America, 
Asia, or even in New Caledonia. The four remaining groups, 
constituting the Folliculares, must have all been formed since 
the isolation from Africa. 1. Banksieze, two genera, with above 
100 species, have the type of distribution of the Australian 
Nucamentaceze, chiefly southern, local, and abundant in indi- 
viduals, with three or four species penetrating into the tropics, 
but none beyond Australia 2. Grevilleeze, in which the genera are 
somewhat less definite and the distribution more extended, have 
above 300 species in about eight genera, of which the greater 
portion are still southern and local; but yet a considerable 
number are tropical, and a few extend to New Caledonia, although 
none beyond that. 3. Embothriez, with about twenty-five 
species in half a dozen genera, form part of that southern, chiefly 
mountain, flora which extends from Tasmania and Victoria to 
New Zealand, Antarctic and Chilian America, a flora which 
comprises many species which we might imagine to have spread 
from the northern hemisphere down the Andes to Antarctic 
America, and thence to New Zealand and Australia, whilst 
others may have extended in a contrary direction ; and amongst 
these we may conjecturally include the Embothriez, which in 
America are not found farther north than Chile; whilst in Aus- 
tralia, although chiefly from the southern and eastern mountains, 
two or three species are northern, and one or two more are found 
in New Caledonia, but none in the Indian Archipelago, nor in 
Continental Asia. 4. We have lastly the tropical form of 
Proteacex, the Heliciexe, which are but a slight modification in 
two different directions (modifications either of the flower or of 
the fruit) of the Grevillea type, probably of a comparatively 
recent date; and although now widely spread over South 
America and Asia, have, nevertheless, left representatives in the 
original Grevillea regions of Australia. There are nearly 100 
species in about eight genera, almost all tropical or subtropical ; 
three small genera are exclusively Australian ; /e/icia itself is 
Asiatic, chiefly from the Archipelago, extending, in four species, 
to tropical Australia ; in one or two species to New Caledonia ; 
in two or three northward to the mountains of Bengal and Sikkim ; 
and in one species evento Japan. Two American genera, with 
about forty species, are represented in New Caledonia by one 
genuine species of each, and one of an allied genus or section ; 
and in tropical Australia by one species showing still the Austra- 
lian connection ; and two small genera are, as far as hitherto 
known, exclusively American ; and may have been there diffe- 
rentiated. No Helicieze, nor indeed, as already observed, any 
Folliculares, have hitherto been discovered in Africa. If, 
therefore, Proteaceze have really ever extended to Europe, it 
would naturally be in this Helicioid group that we should seek 
forthem. As far, however, as I can learn, among the supposed 
century of European Proteacez, there is only one which palzeon- 
tologists refer to it, the Helicia sotzkiana of Ettingshausen, 
founded on a single leaf, which Ettingshausen himself admits to 
bear much resemblance to the leaves of about twenty genera in 
thirteen different families; and, upon much consideration, he 
thinks it rather more likea //e/icta than anything else, and there- 
fore definitively names it as such, a decision in which it is difficult 
to concur. 
In answer to the above negative considerations, which, after 
all, lead to presumption only, we are told that we have positive 
evidence of the existence of Proteaceze in the Miocene, and still 
more in the Eocene formations of Europe, in leaves, fruits, and 
seeds. As none of these have been found attached to the branches 
nor eyen in sufficiently abundant proximity to be matched with 
anything like certainty, we must take the three separately. 
First, as to seeds, those referred by palzeontologists to Proteaceze 
are winged and samaroid, some of them probably real seeds, 
shaped, without doubt, like those of some Hakee and Embathria, 
but quite as much like those of several Coniferce, or of certain 
genera of Meliaceze, Sapindaceze, and various other Dicotyle- 
donous orders, there being no evidence of internal structure, 
conformation of the embryo, &c., by which alone these several 
samaroid seeds can be distinguished. Moreover, those figured 
by Ettingshausen in his paper entitled “Die Proteaceze der 
Vorwelt” (Proc. Imp. Acad. Sc. Vienna, vii. 711, t. xxxi. f. II, 
12, 14, 15, and 4), have a venation of the wing very different 
from that of any Proteaceze I have seen, and much more like 
that of a real samara of anash. Next, as to fruits, the hard fol- 
licles or nuts of Proteaceze are as remarkable for their durability 
as the capsules ofso many Australian Myrtaceze ; and we should 
be led to expect that, where Proteaceous remains are abundant, 
they should include a fair proportion of fruits, as is the case with 
the Conifers, Leguminosze, &c., which have been undoubtedly 
identified. These supposed Proteaceous fruits in the Tertiary 
deposits are, however, exceedingly rare. The only ones I have 
seen figured are: (1) a supposed Embothrium fruit figured by 
Heer in his Vertiary Flora of Switzerland (t. xcvii. f. 30), an out- 
line impression, with a deficiency in the upper portion, and 
without indication of internal structure ; if this deficiency were 
filled up, and the seeds inserted, as in the imaginary restoration, 
f. 31 (for which I see no warrant, and in which the seeds are in 
the wrong position), it would be something like, but to my eyes 
not much like, the follicle of an Zmdothrium, and quite as much 
like what Ettingshausen figures (t. xxxi. f. 5) as the veinless leaf 
of a Lambertia ; and (2) the supposed Persoonie and Cenarrhenes 
drupes figured by Ettingshausen (t.:xxx.) The former, in the 
absence of all indication of structure, are quite as good, if not 
better, representations of young fruits of //ex, Myoporum, and 
many others, as of Persoonia; and where, in figures c and d@ of 
the same plate, recent (unripe) Persoonia fruitsjare inserted, for 
comparison, with the fossil figures B, y, and 6, it appears to me 
that in the latter the long point is the pedicel, and the short point 
the style, whilst in the former, on the contrary, the short point is 
the pedicel, and the long one the style. To suppose that fig. 5 
of the same plant represents the fruit of a Cexarrhenes, which, 
as far as known, has always an obliquely globular drupe, requires 
indeed a great strain upon the imagination. I can find no other 
fossil Proteaceous fruit figured or described. 
Lastly, with regard to leaves, necessarily the mainstay of 
palzontologists, I must admit that there is a certain general facies 
in the foliage of this order that enables us in most, but not in all 
cases, to refer to it with tolerable accuracy leafy specimens known 
to have come from a Proteaceous country, even without flowers 
or fruit ; but as to detached leaves, I do not know of a single 
one which, in outline or venation, is exclusively characteristic of 
the order, or of any one of its genera. If we know the genus 
and section of a specimen, we may determine its species by the 
venation ; and we may sometimes fairly guess at its genus if we 
know it to be Proteaceous; but that is all. Outline is 
remarkably variable in many species of Grevillea and others, and 
venation is not always constant even on the same individual. 
But then we are told, with the greatest confidence, that the 
structure of the stomata in these fossil leaves, as revealed by the 
microscope, proves them beyond all doubt to be Proteaceous. In 
reply to that, I can only refer to the highest authority on these 
