Inaugural Address hy the President. 563 



doubt there is a general external resemblance between a Ij^copod 

 and a conifer, and many points of analogy between the development 

 of the seed and the various stages through which a lycopod passes 

 from the germination of the spore to the growth of the fertilized 

 archegonium. But like is hei*e, as it is often elsewhere, an ill mark, 

 for the resemblance is purely superficial. The minute tissues of the 

 conifer, as well as the method in which they are arranged, differ 

 entirely from anything- either in the existing or extinct lycopods, 

 while the production of a seed, even though it be without a protect- 

 ing ovary or fruit, at once distinguishes the gymnosperm from the 

 spore-bearing cryptogam. According to Haeckel, the gymnosperm 

 sprang out of the Lycopodiacece during the Oarboniferoas, or possibly 

 in the Devonian period. But undoubted coniferous wood was dis- 

 covered by Hugh Miller in the Lower Devonian rocks of Cromarty, 

 and several anomalous woods have been described by linger from 

 the Thuringian rocks of the Devonian age which are referred by 

 him to Coniferce without any positive evidence except the absence 

 from them of ductiferous tissue. Had these woods been of earlier 

 age than Miller's Cromarty wood, they might have been looked upon 

 as one of the steps leading up to the true coniferous structure, but 

 they occur in beds of Upper Devonian age. The Calciferous Sand- 

 stones at the base of the Carboniferous period contain numerous and 

 fine specimens of coniferous wood. Some trees at this time had 

 attained to an immense size. The first appearance of the gymno- 

 sperms is not in the form of a generalized type, but both the wood 

 and the fruits present a remarkable variety of genera and species as 

 highly differentiated as the existing forms. In connexion with this 

 remarkable development of Taxinea in the Palaeozoic rocks, it de- 

 serves to be noticed that this section of the Coniferce are all dioecious, 

 while in the other gro>ups the flowers are generally monoecious. 



The history of monocotyledonous plants, as far as it is preserved 

 in the rocks of the earth, is very curious. We have to take it up 

 here, for the first true monoeotjdedon is the stem and spike of an 

 aroideous plant, of which one well-preserved specimen was dis- 

 covered nearly forty years ago by Dr. Paterson in the Calciferous 

 Sandstones near Edinburgh. Additional specimens of this or an 

 allied species have been recently described by Mr. Etheridge, jun., 

 from the same beds. Four species of monocotyledons have been 

 found in the Trias, seven in the Lias, the same number in the Oolite, 

 15 in the Chalk, 97 in the Eocene. 185 in the Miocene, and two in 

 the Pliocene. We find, then, that the three groups of vascular cryp- 

 togams, and the seed-bearing gj^mnosperms, appear together in the 

 Devonian rocks, and that monocotyledons appear in the lowest beds 

 of the immediately succeeding Carboniferous S3^stem. Further, that 

 these earliest plants are not generalized forms of the various tribes 

 to which they belong, but that they are as highly specialized as any 

 subsequent representatives of the particular tribe, and that wherever 

 they differ from later plants, it is in the possession of a more perfect 

 organization. It would be contrary to the theory of evolution to 

 suppose that the highly-organized cryptogams, the gymnosperms, 

 and the monocotyledons, were each developed at one step from the 



