March 3, 1881J 



NATURE 



413 



plates are faithfully drawn. The separation of another 

 species, .S'. rigida from ^. Smittiatm, seems even less 

 warranted ; but .S. amhigna has somewhat smaller foliage 

 and cones, and 6'. gi-adlis still smaller foliage, approach- 

 ing ^. Coiittsia:, yet compared, for no obvious reason, with 

 6'. Cardncri. 



Spitzbergen has no Cretaceous species peculiar to it, 

 but the Upper Cretaceous of Atanekerdluk possesses, 

 besides two of the Komeschichten species, S. fastigiata, 

 Sternb., and S. subulata, Heer. These two bear the 



same relationship to each other that we have seen 

 between S. Rekhenbachii and 5. Smittiana, only they are 

 both considerably smaller, and were, as in the other case, 

 doubtless the same tree. 



S. RtHchcnbachii is said to be met with in other Cre- 

 taceous deposits in Bohemia, Saxony, Moravi.i, Belgium, 

 &c., and S. fastigiata over the same, but a more restricted 

 area; their wide distribution being held by Saporta to 

 evidence a former universal equality in temperature. 



It is of course useless, without further material, to seek 



.S. rigida. Fig. no, pi. xxii. 3'. Rekhmbachii, Fig. 8, pi. xx. 



to unite the whole of the above species, since they have 

 been described as distinct by Heer ; but it seems perfectly 

 certain that had coUectmg been systematically c.irried on, 

 a small proportion only of the specific distinctions could 

 have been maintained. The excessive subdivision is to 

 be regretted, since it has given undue prominence to the 

 Arctic Sequoias of this age as a group, and will otherwise 

 lead to inconvenience. Their chief and most interesting 

 characteristics have been overlooked by Heer. These are 

 first the union in one plant of the now almost completely 



differentiated S. sempervirens and S.gigantea types ; and 

 second, that the foliage, which then approached to the 

 distichous ^". se-inpcrvircits form, was produced, if the 

 plates are correctly drawn, by the shortening almost to 

 abortion of the upper and under leaves, and not to their 

 being narrowed at the base and twisted, as at present, 

 towards the sides of the branchlets. 



The Arctic Tertiaries have yielded 'no foliage of the 

 spiral, needle. leaved S. gigantea type, except that which 

 has been referred to .S". Couttsicc. The large Araucaria- 

 like foliage of ^'. Steriibergi does not seem at that time to 

 have existed much farther north than Iceland, while the 

 S. setnpcrvireits type seems to have been abundant. 

 Seqiioiia Lagnsdorfii is in fact the prevailing fossil in 

 Greenland, scarcely any stone with leaf impressions 

 being without some remains of it. The branchlets are 

 generally simple and single, rarely forking, and seem thus 

 to have had a short season of growth and been quickly 

 shed, an adaptation probably to the long Arctic winter. 

 Flowers, fruits, and seeds have been collected. It is 

 hardly less abundant at Spitzbergen, Mackenzie River, 

 and othei localities near the Arctic circle and in Iceland. 

 The cones are said to be somewhat larger, and with more 

 scales, and the leaves less pointed than in the existing 

 species. Tlie more decidedly imbricated character of 

 the fruit-bearing branchlets implies a closer affinity with 

 the Cretaceous forms. Heer makes six duly-named varie- 

 ties out of the Spitzbergen species, being probably un- 

 aware of the extent to which foliage on the same tree 

 may vary at the present day. S. brevi/olia, again, is at 

 best a variety, and S. disticha has leaves in opposite 

 pairs, and while unlike in this respect, has nothing besides 

 to support its reference to Sequoia. .S. Langsdorfii next 

 appears in the Miocene Baltic and in the Aquitanian and 

 Mayencian stages in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and 

 France, but does not seem to appear in any Upper Mio- 

 cene beds except as far south as Italy, where it occurs in 

 several localities. This distribution is important, as well 

 as the fact that branchlets from beds of Central Europe 

 are more compound than those from the far north. An- 

 other Spitzbergen species, extremely abundant where first 

 found, is S. Nordoiski'Sldi, said to be di3tinguish.able by 

 smaller and softer foliage, narrower leaflets scarcely 

 tapering at the base and at more acute angles to the 

 stem, the last being the chief distinctive character. None 

 seem to have been met with in the 1872 expedition, only 

 5". Langsdorfii being illustrated in the fourth volume of 

 the " Flora fossilis arctica." 



Another species belonging to the same group, described 

 by Saporta as 5. Toiinialii, is found in the Miocenes of 

 Manosque, Armissan, and Kumi. It is principally charac- 

 terised by the clustered, rarely solitary cones, and while 

 the foliage resembles generally that of the existing species, 

 the branchlets bearing fruit were much more imbricated, 

 and in this respect resembled those of S. Langsdorfii of 

 the Arctic floras. 



Most of these types have also been met with in America 

 — where Lesquereux, following Heer, has over-subdivided 

 the fragments into species. 



The ".y. gigantea type had by far the more restricted 

 distribution of the two in the Tertiaries. Much of this 

 form of foliage from the Lower and Middle Eocenes of 

 England and France has been referred to Araucaria ; but 

 elsewhere, in the Oligocenes especially, almost the whole 

 of it is referred to a single species of Sequoia, 5. Stcnibergi. 

 It agrees with that of young plants of S. gigantea, the 

 leaflets being less falcate, longer, and at a more acute 

 anc'le to the stem than in the nearest existing Araucaria. 

 On the other hand, however, no nearer approach to 

 the ordinary adult foliage of 5. gigantea is ever as- 

 sociated with them. The characteristic cones of Sequoia, 

 which are small and numerous, and very persistent 

 on the branches after the seed is shed, remain at- 

 tached in several fossil species, as S. Coiittsice, wherever 



