402 REPORT—1885. 
Among a few recognised is the very unmistakable seed of Verschagfeltia, a 
genus of Palms from Seychelles, quite new to fossil floras. 
Gurnet Bay Beds.—By the kindness of Mr. A’Court Smith, who has 
been at great pains to despatch to me from time to time selections from 
his collection for examination, I have been able to study this flora at 
leisure during the spring. As a result, I ascertain that another Fern 
rivals Anemia subcretacea in range, Chrysodium Lanzeanwm, which ex- 
tends from the Lower Bagshot upwards into the Bembridge beds. The 
plants are as a rule dreadfully macerated and chopped up. Among 
them are small fragments of a Gileichenia, which, though not very 
beautiful, is a very important Fern, coming from the horizon, By far the 
most important discovery, however, is that of Doliostrobus, the first really 
extinct Conifer that I have met with in British Hocenes. It belonged to 
the tribe of Araucariece, and its identification has been thoroughly con- 
firmed by correspondence and the interchange of specimens with Dr. 
Marion, the well-known botanist of Marseilles. Its description will 
appear in the forthcoming volume of the Palzeontographical Society. 
A visit to Gurnet Bay will be necessary in order to complete my inves- 
tigations into this flora. 
It is certain that during the Hocene period, as the temperature 
increased from the base upward to the Middle Bagshot, when the 
maximum of heat seems to have prevailed, there was a tendency for the 
plant world to move northward. It is equally certain that in the later 
half of the Kocene as the temperature began to decrease the movement 
was in the opposite direction, and we find in the European Miocenes of 
Switzerland and Italy a number of plants that at an earlier period were 
growing inthe far north. In the Bembridge beds we should expect to 
find many plants of the Lower Hocenes reappearing that are absent in the 
Middle Hocenes. Two of the Reading plants reappear in the very limited 
flora of Hordwell, and two of the Antrim plants in that of Gurnet Bay 
and Hempstead. Trifling such facts appear, but they have their signifi- 
cance. No such forms occur among the thousands or tens of thousands 
of plant remains brought from Bournemouth; and we may feel quite 
certain that they were not comprised in our flora of that date. The 
moment the Hordwell Beds are searched, and among the first plants ob- — 
tained from them, are two Reading species. There are of course in a flora 
many plants, in addition to those thoroughly at home, which are near their 
limits of heat and limits of cold. Those that were capable of supporting 
much more heat might have maintained their ground throughout the 
whole Eocene period, whilst of the rest that migrated some would come 
back with each successive decrease of temperature, while others might 
never again find conditions suited to them. Mere superficial observa- 
tions are of no use in this study, and immense collections and minute 
comparisons must still be made if our knowledge of Hocene plants is ever 
to be commensurate with the importance of the subject. 
Explanation of Plates. 
PLATE I. 
Anemia subcretacea, Saporta.—Reading Beds, Reading.—This fern is essentially 
characteristic of the older EHocenes, and even pre-Hocene, rocks. A Fern 
hardly distinguishable from it appears in the Cretaceous rocks of Aix-la- 
Chapelle, and other localities in Europe and Greenland. It is found in the 
old Eocene of Sézanne, in the Paris basin, and in the west of France, and in 
a 
