502 J. Starkie Gardner — Fossil Flowering Plants. 



even many Cretaceous floras are said to comprise Quercus, and Fagus, 

 and Corylus, to select these as typical examples. Now we very much 

 doubt whether the fruits of these genera have been met with in any 

 strata older than the Upper Miocene, we might almost say the 

 Pliocene ; whilst in the latter the fruits of at least two of them are 

 very far from uncommon. Fossil hazel-nuts are well known to 

 abound in forest beds such as the one at Brook, in the Isle of Wight, 

 and at Carrickfergus. It does appear to us that it would have been 

 wiser and more consistent, when arriving at these determinations, to 

 have taken the absence of fruits into account, when these were such 

 as would naturally have been preserved. The large proportion of 

 fossil dicotyledonous leaves that have been referred without any 

 hesitation to living genera must strike every one, in comparison with 

 the relatively few associated fruits that have been determined other- 

 wise than as Carpolithes — a name which is a confession of failure. 

 It will thus be seen that in our opinion the fossil Dicotyledons of our 

 own Eocene must be dealt with in a manner different from that 

 pursued by the majority of foreign writers on kindred subjects, and 

 that a revision of much of their work is urgently needed. 



To resume our immediate subject, we have nothing new to record 

 of the Bracklesham flora except that Mr. Elwes, in excavating in the 

 New Forest, met with Nipadites in some abundance, and a specimen 

 he still has proves the species to be the same as that from Bracklesham 

 Bay, and entirely different from that which forms a conspicuous zone 

 in the marine series of the Bournemouth group. 



At Barton, on the other hand, we have been able to procure nearly 

 a dozen pine-cones, hitherto a great desideratum, from the Highcliff 

 beds, which go far to prove that there is only one variety there, 

 indistinguishable from the Pinus Dixoni of Bracklesham. Along 

 with these we have branches of apparently the Bournemouth 

 Araucaria, and an important and entirely new fruit, fortunately 

 represented by many specimens, which permit us to examine the 

 details of their structure. These consist of twigs on which are 

 seated in some profusion clusters of numerous sessile woody peri- 

 carps with deeply laciniate margin, giving the fruit when closed the 

 appearance of a large burr. These inclose a nut or seed, rather 

 smaller, but otherwise resembling that of a cucumber. There has 

 not yet been time to make the researches necessary to come to a 

 conclusion regarding it, and Mr. Carruthers and other botanists who 

 have seen the specimens are unable offhand to pronounce upon its 

 affinities. A rather large fossil plant from the same locality has 

 recently been lent us by the Council of the Hartley Institute, and 

 altogether the plants from this horizon, hitherto vei-y meagrely re- 

 presented, bid fair to take an important position. On the other hand, 

 the Hordwell end of the same section, though twice visited since our 

 last report, has furnished nothing new. 



We have fortunately met with a few very distinctly marked leaves 

 from the Middle Headon of Headon Hill, preserved in the York 

 Museum, which with those previously obtained from the Lower 

 Headon of Hordwell, help to bridge-over one of the few gaps in our 

 really surprisingly complete succession of Eocene floras. 



