GOPPERT ON THE FLORA OF THE BROWN-COAL FORMATION. / 



whole that a great similarity prevails between the flora of the brown- 

 coal and the flora of the temperate zone of the United States of North 

 America. This will appear more decisively when I am able to bring 

 together all the results bearing on this point. 



All the species of Taxus observed in the brown-coal diiFer remark- 

 ably from those now existing in the three or fourfold striation of the 

 sides of the cells running at acute angles, whereas in the latter a single 

 fibre forms an almost horizontal spiral. In manj'^ brown-coal deposits 

 in Silesia as well as in Prussian Saxony (Nietleben near Halle, Wor- 

 schen, Gramschiitz, Rossbach near Weissenfels, Teuditz, Tollwitz 

 near Diirenberg, Voigtstedt near Artern) species of Taxus seem to 

 predominate even quantitatively, and among them the Taxites Ayckii 

 formerly described has an uncommonly wide distribution, not only in 

 the localities now named, but also occurs in the Rhenish brown-coal 

 deposits, in Hessenbriick near Laubach in the Wetterau, in Silesia, 

 the Lausitz, at Redlau near Danzig, in the Samland in Prussia, and 

 Ostrolenka in Poland. Further researches will undoubtedly show 

 similar results in relation to other species, as for example the Pinites 

 Protolaj'ix. 



4. Narrow annual rings, consequently a highly compressed growth, 

 such as in existing coniferse is only found, according to Martins, in 

 high northern latitudes, and according to my own observations for- 

 merly published, on high mountains, is constantly found prevailing 

 in the bituminous trees, and imparts to some of the wood an uncom- 

 mon density and weight, similar to that of the Guaiac wood. In 

 many species I have counted 15-20 annual rings in the breadth of a 

 line, of course in round stems, as in those pressed flat the influence 

 of the compression must also be taken into account, though in other 

 respects its influence, as for instance on the walls of cells, is less than 

 might be imagined. A stem of a Pinites Protolarix from the brown- 

 coal pits near Laasan, with a diameter of 12 inches in breadth and 

 1 6 inches in length, showed in this narrow circumference not fewer 

 than 700 annual rings. Yet in the ancient as in the present world, 

 there was a great diversity in the rate of growth even of the same 

 species, for in another nearly cylindrical stem of this tree 16 inches 

 in diameter, only 400 annual rings could be distinguished. 



5. I have repeatedly observed on trunks and branches, the broken- 

 ofF twigs and branches grown over by new layers of wood, and to 

 my great joy in the brown-coal pit of Francisca at Popelwitz near 

 Nimptsch in Silesia, a stump of a conifera perfectly shut in by the 

 more recent layers, which might have served right well for a Krater 

 or drinking-cup, for which, as Theophrastus tells us, the ancient Thra- 

 cians used these stumps of the pine. As the same laws of vegetation 

 prevailed in the ancient and in the existing creation, there is nothing 

 singular in this observation, yet still it seemed to deserve a passing 

 notice. " [J. N.] 



