1894.] of fossil plants, with list of type specimens. 189 



specimens from floras which are widely separated both geologically 

 and geographically. 



It is not proposed in these notes to attempt any critical resume 

 of Bunbury's work as a whole, but rather to call attention to his 

 type specimens, and especially to one specimen of a Jurassic fern 

 [Klukia (Pecopteris) eocilis] described by him in 1851. 



In illustration of the sound principles which influenced Bun- 

 bury's work it may not be out of place to quote a few sentences 

 from one or two of his papers. Discussing the question of 

 geological climates he thus expresses himself : — " If in all depart- 

 ments of geology it is necessary to advance with caution, it is more 

 especially necessary in the department of fossil botany, where so 

 much of the evidence we possess is fragmentary and imperfecta" 

 This is, indeed, but the statement of a truism, but nevertheless it 

 is a truism which bears repetition, and one which has been too 

 often overlooked by students of geological floras. Again, on the 

 subject of the distribution of Carboniferous ferns, he writes in the 

 following words, which are still worthy of attention after an 

 interval of forty-seven years : — " We may, I think, conclude that 

 the wide diffusion of the same forms of vegetation through the 

 ancient Carboniferous deposits of Europe and America, is less 

 extraordinary than it would appear if we neglected to observe 

 the large proportion of ferns in this ancient vegetation, and their 

 distribution at the present day. Still it must be admitted that 

 the uniformity of this ancient vegetation over so large an area, 

 extending from Scotland to Alabama in latitude, and in longitude 

 from Bohemia to Ohio, is greater than can be found at the present 

 day ; and I quite agree with Mr Lyell in believing that this 

 indicates a greater uniformity and equability of climate, depending 

 probably on a different distribution of land and sea. I believe 

 we are fully justified by analogy in saying, that if such continents 

 as Europe and North America had not existed at that period, 

 but in their stead groups of islands, large and small, and if the 

 ocean which now intervenes between the two continents had been 

 thickly studded with such groups, like the Southern Pacific at 

 present, there would have been nothing unnatural or surprising in 

 such a uniformity of vegetation throughout those regions, as we 

 now meet with in the Coal-formation. But I suggest this merely 

 as a hypothesis, which, if admitted, would serve to explain a 

 remarkable fact, and I do not wish to build much upon it ; being 

 aware, as I observed on a former occasion, of the danger of resting 

 a large theory on such uncertain foundations as are supplied by 

 fossil botany, at least in the present state of our knowledge I" 



1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Vol. ii. 1846, p. 90. 



2 Q. J. G. S. Vol. in. 1847, p. 436. 



