204 J. Sfarkie Gardner — Mesozoic Angiosperms. 



Dicotyledons of Buckman ! seem to be either Cycadaceous or too 

 indistinct to be determinable, and no importance whatever can be 

 attached to their supposed Angiospernious affinities. 



Among many specimens lent me by Mr. Brodie, however, is one 

 undoubtedly Monocotyledonous fragment from the Purbeck of 

 Swindon (Plate V. Fig. 2), three millimetres wide, with nine 

 parallel equal longitudinal veins. It has a rush or grass-like 

 appearance, but may possibly belong to an aquatic plant. 



The records of some of the supposed early Angiosperms may have 

 escaped me, but some have purposely not beeii included in this 

 notice, because they are not deserving of mention. 



No new types come in during the Lower Cretaceous, and our 

 knowledge of the Angiosperms of this period remains in a most 

 imperfect state. There are still jointed stems and occasional 

 fragments of sword-like leaves, and the important Draccena-like 

 Eolirion, of Schenk. I have found rolled pellets of palm-like wood 

 in the Gault at Folkestone, and, as already stated, an organism in 

 the Grey Chalk which Saporta pronounced to be a Williamsonia. 

 The most remarkable thing is that not the smallest trace of an 

 Angiosperm has been found in the Weal den deposits, though these 

 appear to have been pre-eminently likely to have preserved such, 

 had they existed. A host of Dicotyledons as well as many of the 

 principal families of Monocotyledons, come in with the Upper 

 Cretaceous, but the relative ages of the beds in which they occur 

 are by no means satisfactorily determined, and, as Floras, they are 

 rather to be grouped with those of the Tertiaries than those of the 

 Wealden, Neocomian and Gault. 



The mystery in which the early development of Angiosperms is 

 still shrouded is the more inexplicable, since the presence of a flower- 

 sucking moth in the Solenhofen beds is a well-ascertained fact. 

 From a remark made by Prof. Marsh, at Aberdeen, there is some 

 hope that welcome revelations regarding American Jurassic Angio- 

 sperms may reach us ere long. In the meantime I refrain from 

 encumbering this communication with any of the obvious speculations 

 that have occurred to me, and probably to others, as possible 

 explanations of their extreme rarity in prse-Cretaceous deposits. 

 The evidence tends to show that Monocotyledons (?) of some sort 

 existed as far back as the Trias, possessing leaves of the most primi- 

 tive type, such as we now meet with in Yucca, Draccena, etc., and 

 that during the Jurassics decided Monocotyledons, which can be 

 placed in the Pandanacece, and others with jointed stems like 

 Graminece, flourished side by side with more problematical plants 

 such as Williamsonia. Little more than this can yet be said, though 

 Saporta and Marion bring forward an array of arguments and 

 inferences wherewith to build up a family tree, 2 which if not quite 

 carrying conviction, are certainly highly suggestive, and deserve the 

 most careful consideration. 



1 Murchison and Buckman, Outline of the Geology of Cheltenham, 1845. 



2 Evolution des Phanerogames, Saporta and Marion. 



