332 



Brief Survey of tlie Afflnities and History of the Cyprian Flora. 



the last Glacial epoch, it seems as if the veg-etatioii of the Mediterranean countries has. in comparison 

 to this, during the same space of time been highly stationary. 



Through Hnds of fossils we know that near relatives, now extinct, of several Oriental plants in 

 the Tertiary epoch occurred in tracts connecting their present widely separated areas of distribution. Thus 

 Liquidambar curopcmim A. Br., which was a near relative of L. sti/raciflua, was distributed from North- 

 America and Greenland to Central- and Southern Europe. AbeUcea Ungeri (Ettingsh.) was in the latter 

 part of the Tertiary epoch widely distributed from South-France and Greece to Greenland, Spitzbergen, 

 Siberia, Japan and Alaska. PJatanus marginata (Lesq.) Heer had in the middle and latter periods of the 

 Tertiary epoch a con.siderable distribution in North-America, Greenland, Europe, and northern Asia. 

 Tertiary leaf-fossils belonging to the genus Bhus (and within this genus to the same group as B. Coriaria) 



are known from North-America 

 as well as from Central-Europe. 

 Even from the earlier parts of the 

 Quarternary period sure tinds of 

 fossils are known, proving that some 

 typical Mediterranean plants have 

 at that time had a more continuous 

 distribution than they have at pre- 

 sent. Thus Bhododendron ponticum, 

 which does not to-day occur in wild 

 state between Southern Spain and 

 the countries east of the Black Sea, 

 is in a fossil state found in old Quar- 

 ternary deposits at Hiittingen in 

 Tyrol (Wettstein) ') and on the 

 little isle of Skyros in the Aegean 

 Sea (Gunnar Andersson)-). 



The main cause of the fact that 

 so many plants of the Mediterranean countries have at the present time such a scattered distribution, must 

 be sought in the geographical as well as the climatological development which this region has undergone 

 in the course of the Tertiary and Quarternary periods. 



As is well known, the Tertiary epoch, and within this especially the Miocene period, was in the 

 Mediterranean countries rich in great revolutions. The Atlas-mountains, the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Apen- 

 nines, and the Carpathian mountains were for the greatest part formed through mighty foldings of the 

 earth's crust during the Miocene period. Also in the eastern parts of the Mediterranean, amongst others 

 in Syria and on Cyprus, considerable mountain-ridges then were formed, according to investigations made 

 by Blanckenhokn and Beegeat. On the origin of the two large mountain-ridges on Cyprus the latter 

 author writes as follows: 



„Die steile Aufrichtung und Faltung der miociinen Ablagerungen, welche einen grossen Theil 

 der Nordkette bilden, lassen sofort erkennen, dass das Alter der Insel Cypern in ihrer heutigen Gestal- 

 tung noch ein sehr jugendliches ist und sich da, wo heute ein iiber tausend Meter hohes Kettengebirge 

 emporragt, in verhiiltnismassig kurzer Zeit Vorgiinge abgespielt haben, welche mit gewaltigen dynamischen 

 Erscheinungen verbunden gewesen sein miissen. — — — 



liiocene Period. (After he Lappark> 



1 I II Jliddle of the 

 Ui\ 1-J. Ivayser). 



') R. V. Wettstein, Rliododendrou pouticum L. fossil in den Nordalpeii. (Sitzlier. d. math, naturw. Classe d. K. Alcad. 

 d. Wissenseh. Bd. 97, Abth. I, p. 40, Wieu 1888). 



-) Gunnar Andersson, Rhododendron pouticnm fossil in the island of Skyros in Greece. (Die Verauderungen des 

 Klimas seit dem Maximum d. letzteu Eiszeit, p. 145. Stockholm 1910). 



