A. J. Jukes-Browne — The Bovey Deposits. 263 



With regard to the names of the plants above mentioned several 

 alterations have to be made. 



In the first place it is probable that the so-called Sequoia does not 

 belong to that genus. The same species has been quoted as occurring 

 at Hordwell and in the Hamstead Beds, but Mr. Gardner found that 

 the cones there associated with the leafage were indistinguishable 

 from those of Athrotaxis ciipressoides of Tasmania, " a small erect 

 tree from 20 to 30 feet high with numerous branchlets which are 

 slender, spreading or pendulous and cylindrical.^ . . . It is found at 

 Lake 8t. Clair and along Pine River Valley in western Tasmania." 

 From this it is clear that Athrotaxis prefers wet situations like its 

 relative Taxodium distichum., which is a notable tree in the swamps of 

 Yirginia, Carolina, and Florida. 



It has not yet been ascertained if the Bovey tree is the same species, 

 owing to the difficulty of getting well-preserved cones, but the 

 probability of its being the same is great. 



Again, the Pecopteris of Heer pi'oved to be a species of Osmunda, 

 and as many species of this genus thrive best in wet and marshy 

 ground, 0. lignit(e may well have grown on the very spots where its 

 rhizomes and large leaves are now found in such profusion, and in the 

 same beds of lignite with the Athrotaxis. 



Lastly, as regards Carpolithes, Mr. Clement Reid informs me that it 

 is the fruit of a Stratiotes, and may for the present be called Stratiotes 

 Websteri. He also tells me that similar fruits occur in the Hamstead 

 Beds, in the Cromer Forest Bed, and in Pleistocene deposits, having 

 also been known under the name of Paradoxocarpus carinatus, but 

 that he cannot yet say whether they all belong to one species or not. 

 Stratiotes is a water-plant, and the British species is known as the 

 ' water - soldier ' . In reply to a question Mr. Reid writes that ' ' judging 

 by the mode of occurrence in the Hants Basin, I should say that 

 Stratiotes Wehderi was probably a shallow lagoon species which did 

 not mind a little salt. It is found abundantly mixed with fruits of 

 Lwmocarpus, a genus close to Potamogeto7i ". 



The evidence afforded by these plants is therefore strongly in 

 favour of the view that the flora of the beds containing their remains 

 is a swamp flora, and consequently that these lower lignite beds have 

 been formed where they are now found by the growth and decay of 

 the plants which occur in them. 



Besides those plants which seem to have contributed most largely 

 to the formation of the lignites, the more common forms recorded by 

 Heer are two species of cinnamon, an evergreen oak ( Quercus Lyelli) 

 said to be "like those seen in Mexico", some species of vines ( Vitis), 

 the prickly cactus {Pahnacites), and several species of Nyssa, a tree 

 of which several species live in the United States, and one at least 

 is conspicuously a swamp-lover. 



In this connection it is important to note another fact, and that is 

 that the Bovey lignites have not, so far as they have been investigated, 

 yielded any mosses, and it is clear that they were not formed after 



^ Mr. G. Smith in his recent book on Tasmania describes the Athrotaxis as growing 

 to a height of 40 or 50 feet. 



