372 Notices of Memoirs — Fossil and Recent Sequoice. 



nearest affinities are clearly with the genus Stylodon of Owen, from the 

 Purbeck beds of England, 1 and in many respects the correspondence is 

 close. This specimen clearly indicates a new genus, which may be called 

 Stylacodon, and the species represented, Stylacodon gracilis. With the 

 genus Stylodon, this form evidently constitutes a distinct family, which 

 may appropriately be termed the Stylodontidce. The present specimen 

 indicates an animal somewhat smaller than a weasel, and probably 

 insectivorous in habit. 



II. — On the Fossil and Kecent Sequoia. By Prof. Oswald 

 Heer. (Proceed. Inper. Geol. Instit. Vienna, March 4, 1879.) 



TWO species of Sequoia have survived to the present time, namely, 

 1. Sequoia sempervirens, Endl. {Taxodium sempervirens, Lamb.), 

 still frequent, with distichous, divaricated leaves, small globular fruit, 

 and similar in habit to Taxus baccata : 2. Sequoia gigantea, Endl. 

 (Wellingtonia gigantea, Lindley), only in isolated groups, with narrow 

 leaves, adpressed to the branches, with much larger oviform fruit, and 

 showing the habit of Cupressus. Each of these species represents a 

 distinct type. 



The Tertiary species are very numerous. Sequoia brevifolia, Heer, is 

 analogous to S. sempervirens, as S. (Araucarites) Sternbergi, Goepp., 

 is to S. gigantea. The Miocene species — S. Langsdorfii (Brongn.), 

 S. brevifolia, H., S. disticha, H, S. Nordenskiceldi, PL, S. longifolia, 

 Lesq., S. angustifolia, Lesq., and S. acuminata, Lesq., are closely re- 

 lated to each other. The interval between the two extreme forms, 

 S. Langsdorfii and S. Sternbergi, is filled up by six species — S. Couttsice, 

 PL, S. affinis, Lesq., S. imbricata, PL, S. Sibirica, PL, S. LLeeri, Lesq., 

 and S. biformis, Lesq. 



Of the ten Cretaceous species, three are of the Tipper, two of the 

 Middle, and five of the Lower Cretaceous series. These last have 

 representatives in the two living forms : S. Smittiana, PL, in S. 

 sempervirens, and S. Reichenbachi (Gein.), (Geinitzia cretacea) in S. 

 gigantea. The intermediate species are S. subulata, H., S. rigida, PL, 

 S. gracilis, PL, S. fastigiata, and S. Gardneriana, Carr. ; the last three 

 have adpressed leaves. 



The Jurassic strata, rich as they are in Coniferous plants, offer no 

 traces of Sequoia, which appears first in the TJrgonian beds, — and then 

 in the two extreme forms which have alone survived beyond the 

 Tertiary Period. 



Prof. 0. Heer also remarks, with regard to the Arctic Tertiary flora, 

 that Mr. J. Starkie Gardner's statement — that two fossil floras very 

 similar one to the other, hut situated under widely distant latitudes, 

 should not be considered to be coeval — is not consistent with the 

 facts — that living plants (especially trees) are met with from the 

 Italian frontier up to 70° 1ST. Lat., — that the existing flora of Grinell 

 Land numbers among its 59 phanerogams 45 European and 6 Italian 

 species, — and that of the 559 phanerogamous species of the Island of 

 Saghalin, no less than 188 are found among the flora of Switzerland. 

 The Tertiary flora of the Arctic zone cannot be Eocene, as supposed 

 by Mr. Gardner, for in Northern Bohemia the Cretaceous strata are 

 1 Geol. Mag Vol. III. p. 199, 1866, and Pal. Soc. vol. xxiv. p. 45, 1871. 



