1850.] BUCKMAN ON LIAS PLANTS. 417 



their true nature without further search and better-preserved indi- 

 viduals. These are all from the Insect limestone of Strensham, 

 Worcestershire. 



Umbellifer^. Of what I take to be a representative of this 

 tribe, Mr. Brodie has a tolerably perfect seed, fig. 8 b, and also a 

 branch of some highly organized plant, which may also belong to the 

 same tribe, fig. 8 a. That the httle branch belongs to an advanced 

 member of the vegetable kingdom is evident from the plainly -marked 

 articulating surfaces. 



Ericace^. Leaf net-veined, triangularly concave, without a petiole. 

 Fig. 9 a, 9 b, Section of the leaf. 



This also is only provisionally referred, one leaf only having been 

 found ; at the same time it is so undoubtedly Dicotyledonous as to 

 render this small relic an object of interest ; and should subsequent 

 examination into the small plants of the lias associated with insects 

 clearly prove the existence of plants of the high Natural Orders to 

 which the two last belong, the fact will be as interesting to the bota- 

 nist as the geologist. 



From these notes upon the vegetation which accompanies the in- 

 sect remains in the lower lias limestone beds, it Mill be seen that all 

 the forms of plants belong to families and even species that might 

 have existed in just that kind of climate indicated by the insects ; 

 indeed most of them are so emphatically those of temperate regions, 

 that the plants alone would justify us in concluding, either that the 

 beds in which they occur were deposited under similar climatal con- 

 ditions to those which now prevail in North America ; or, that both 

 the plants and insects must have been drifted into the position in 

 which they are found from a great distance. 



Mr. Brodie conceives that they were deposited under estuarine 

 conditions, and he appeals to the quantity of insect forms, the shells 

 of Cypris and Cyclas with which they are associated, and the general 

 absence of insects in other marine strata, as evidence of his views. 

 These conditions, he conceives, would not occur, were organic remains 

 drifted in quantities from great distances. On the other hand, the 

 insects and plants occur in the proximity of Sauria, Ammonites, 

 Mollusca, and Cidares, all of undoubted marine origin, consisting too 

 for the most part of species which have been considered as natives of 

 a warmer latitude than the insects and plants would lead us to infer. 

 So that, whether we adopt the estuarine theory or no, the conviction 

 is almost forced upon us, that in this case, where small plants and 

 insects are thus interpolated with larger remains, — if we suppose 

 these latter to indicate a different climate, — ^the former must have 

 drifted from a great distance to the latter ; and indeed the general frag- 

 mentary state of both plants and insects greatly strengthens this view. 



It may after all be a question whether the great bulk of the animal 

 remains of these lower lias beds necessarily indicate a climate so tro- 

 pical in character as has generally been supposed ; but be this as it 

 may, the plants and insects so nearly indicate the same climate, that 



