ON THE FOSSIL PLANTS OF THE TERTIARY AND SECONDARY BEDS. 249 



Acer, Carpinus, the Leguminosce, and many otliers, bat the residnam with 

 indeterminable fruits, or fruits that will not float, may be very large. We 

 are thus brought to the question, whether any value beyond that of mere 

 landmarks, or aids to the correlation of rocks, can be attached to the de- 

 terminations of fossil dicotyledonous leaves arrived at when fruits are absent. 

 Nearly every Tertiary and even many Cretaceous floras are said to comprise 

 Quercus, Fagus, and Corylus, to select these as typical examples. Now, 

 we very much doubt whether the fruits of these genera have been met 

 with in any strata older than the Upper Miocene, we might almost say 

 the Pliocene ; whilst in the latter the fruits of at least two of them are 

 very far from uncommon. Fossil hazel-nuts are well known to abound in 

 forest beds such as the one at Brook, in the Isle of Wight, and at Carrick- 

 fergus. It does appear to us that it would have been wiser and more 

 ■consistent, when arriving at these determinations, to have taken the 

 absence of fruits into account, when these were such as would naturally 

 have been preserved. The large proportion of fossil dicotyledonous 

 leaves that have been referred without any hesitation to living genera 

 must strike everyone, in comparison with the relatively few associated 

 fruits that have been determined otherwise than as Carpolithes — a name 

 which is a confession of failure. It will thus be seen that in our opinion 

 the fossil Dicotyledons of our own Eocene must be dealt with in a 

 manner difierent from that pursued by the majority of foreign writers on 

 kindred subjects, and that a revision of much of their work is urgently 

 needed. 



To resume our immediate subject, we have nothing new to record of 

 the Bracklesham flora except that Mr. Elwes, in excavating in the New 

 Forest, met with Nipadites in some abundance, and a specimen he still 

 has proves the species to be the same as that from Bracklesham Bay, and 

 entirely different from that which forms a conspicuous zone in the marine 

 series of the Bournemouth group. 



At Barton, on the other hand, we have been able to procure nearly a 

 dozen pine-cones, hitherto a great desideratum, from the Highcliff" beds, 

 which go far to prove that there is only one variety there, indistinguish- 

 able from the Pinus Dixoni of Bracklesham. Along with these we have 

 branches of apparently the Bournemouth Araucaria, and an important 

 and entirely new fruit, fortunately represented by many specimens, which 

 permit us to examine the details of their structure. These consist of twigs 

 on which are seated in some profusion clusters of numerous sessile woody 

 pericarps with deeply laciniate margin, giving the fruit when closed the 

 appearance of a large burr. These enclose a nut or seed, rather smaller, 

 but otherwise resembling that of a cucumber. There has not yet been 

 time to make the researches necessary to come to a conclusion regarding 

 it, and Mr. Carruthers and other botanists who have seen the specimens 

 are unable oS'hand to pronounce upon its aflBnities. A rather large fossil 

 plant from the same locality has recently been lent us by the Council of 

 the Hartley Institute, and altogether the plants from this horizon, hitherto 

 . very meagrely represented, bid fair to take an important position. On 

 the other hand, the Hordwell end of the same section, though twice 

 visited since our last report, has furnished nothing new. 



We have fortunately met with a few veiy distinctly marked leaves 

 from the Middle Headon of Headon Hill, preserved in the York Museum, 

 which with those previously obtained from the Lower Headon of Hord- 



