1897] PHYLOGENY AND TAXONOMY OF THE ANGIOSPERMS 151 
but 36 per cent. of those having petals, while Lesquereux’s list 
contains but 42.5 per cent. of apetalous, and 57.5 per cent. of petal- 
ous plants. This result is so directly contrary to the commonly 
accepted notions as to the composition of the dicotyledonous flora 
of the Cretaceous period that it is worthy of careful consideration. 
It is possible that this unexpected predominance of the petalous 
plants is merely the result of the more careful and exhaustive 
study of the Cretaceous fossils of America, and that when we 
know more fully the fossil plants of the Cretaceous elsewhere we 
shall no longer suppose the earlier dicotyledons to have been 
mainly apetalous. The suggestion is seen to be quite probable 
when we observe that Lesquereux’s earlier report® contained 61 
per cent. of apetalous to 39 per cent. of petalous plants. Here 
very certainly the work of twelve or fourteen years upon one 
formation reversed the numerical proportions between the 
apetalous and the petalous plants. 
In the Eocene period, if we follow Schimper, we find that the 
families of dicotyledons had risen from twenty-one in the Cre- 
taceous to forty, and that the species were more than three and 
and one-half times as numerous. The gamopetalous species had 
risen to 14 per cent., and of the remainder considerably more than 
one half (33.5 per cent.) were petalous. For the whole of the 
dicotyledons the per cent. of petal-bearing species had risen to 
nearly 64. And yet in spite of all this increase we find that the 
per cent. of species with inferior ovaries remained as in the 
Cretaceous, or nearly so. 
Many families were added in the sub-orders previously rep- 
resented, and some new sub-orders appeared. Thus in Ranales 
there were added the Anonacez and the Nymphezacee. The 
sub-orders Polygalales and Geraniales appeared, the first rep- 
resented by the Pittosporacee, and the second by the Rutacee. 
To the Malvales were added the Sterculiacee and Tiliacee; to 
the Rosales, the three leguminous families (Mimosacee, Czesal- 
Piniacee, and Papilionacez); to the Celastrales, the Ilicinee, 
Celastracez, Rhamnacez, and Thymelzacee ; to the Umbellales, 
® The Cretaceous Flora. U. S. Geol. Survey of the Territories. 1874. 
