ANCIENT FERNS 227 



simpler and certainly more primitive forms. Well 

 developed as some of the Carboniferous plants were, 

 those characteristic of the Period were different from 

 any existing species, and, without exception, they are 

 all extinct. 



It would have been particularly enlightening to the 

 student of the development of plant forms if the fossil 

 record were such as to indicate an ancient type of 

 plant from which the Eerns diverged; but such an indi- 

 cation is not available. That the Ferns are an exceed- 

 ingly ancient group appears from remains of Devonian 

 Age; and it is advisable to note that a fossil, Eopteris, 

 said to be a Fern, has been found in strata of Lower 

 Silurian times. That this is a Fern is open to dispute. 

 But that highly organized Ferns existed in Devonian 

 times seems beyond question; yet, in the absence of 

 the discovery of petrifactions yielding sporangia, the 

 finding of leaves, no matter how Fernlike, is not suffi- 

 cient evidence in favour of a conclusion that those 

 leaves are remains of indubitable Ferns. As we have 

 yet to see, many supposed fossil Fern forms, in the Ught 

 of later investigations, have now to be classed with 

 another group. The point at issue for the moment is 

 that the Palaeozoic Ferns, so far as we can learn from 

 fossils, even the earliest of them, were all highly organ- 

 ized on their own peculiar lines, and we search in vain 

 in earlier strata for signs of transitionary forms leading 

 up to them. 



Contrary to the notion, in which we used to be in- 

 structed, that the Palaeozoic Era was the " Age of 

 Ferns," the evidence we now have before us shows that 



