10 BRITISH EOCENE ELORA. 



any determinations upon the very insufficient materials. Shortly after appeared a note by 

 Hooker ^ on Carpolithes ovulum from Lewisham, which he supposed was the sporangium 

 of a cryptogamous plant ; but this opinion has not been adopted by recent writers, who 

 consider it the seed of a Nymphaceous plant.^ De-la-Harpe ^ considered that the Reading 

 leaves might be determined, and in 1856 referred them to various genera. 



In the table of fossils from these beds in the fourth volume of the ' Geological Survey 

 Memoirs,' p. 578, six of these leaves have specific names attached to them. 



In 1875 Rupert Jones and Cooper King* noticed fragments of leaf-beds enclosed in 

 strata in a newly exposed section at Reading. 



A most careful search there has resulted up to the present in nothing more than 

 indistinct leaf-remains, principally of Willow form. 



Mr. E. S. Dewick informs me that a bed of leaves was cut through fourteen years 

 since by a railway excavation at Mottingham, and has forwarded me the small fragments 

 that were preserved. Other leaf-remains have been found at Charlton. 



Very few of the plant-remains from the Woolwich and Reading Beds are now in a 

 condition to be of value for descriptive purposes ; but some, sufficiently well preserved, 

 exist in the British, Jermyn Street, and the Geological Society's Museums, and I possess 

 a series from Dulwich, which were formerly in Bowerbank's collection. In addition 

 to this, in 1878 I obtained from Newhaven a considerable number of leaves in a beautiful 

 state of preservation. This I esteem the more fortunate, since the leaf-bed is very local 

 and has almost entirely fallen into the sea, whither it will be followed at no distant date 

 by the rest of the outlier. I shall therefore be able to give an account, though very 

 imperfect, of this Lower-Eocene flora. Little diversity seems its chief feature, for the 

 greater part of the leaves found by Mantell, Prestwich, and myself, belong to a small 

 number of species. An Aralia-like leaf has been found at Lewisham. I have not seen 

 any remains of the palms mentioned as coming from the formation, or the cone figured 

 by Prestwich (1. c), and I fear they may now be disintegrated. 



III. Flora of the Oldhaven Beds. 



Whitaker ^ mentions plant-remains in these beds from several localities. The most 

 important is at Widmore Kiln, Bromley. Some leaves from that place were sub- 

 mitted to Carruthers, who remarked upon them as follows : — " The series of leaves 



' 'Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' vol. xi, pi. xvi, p. 562. 



2 Scliimper, ' Traite de Pal.,' vol. iii, p. 93. 



3 'Bull. Soc. Vaudoise,' vol. v, p. 123. 



* 'Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' vol. xxxi, p. 451, 

 5 < Mem. Geol. Surv.,' vol. iv, 1872, pp. 247, 582. 



