PAST HISTORIES OF PLANT FAMILIES 79 



CHAPTER VIII 



PAST HISTORIES OF PLANT FAMILIES 

 I. Flowering Plants, Angiosperms 



In comparison with the other groups of plants the 

 flowering famiHes are of recent origin, yet in the sense 

 in which the word is usually used they are ancient 

 indeed, and the earliest records of them must date at 

 least to periods hundreds of thousands of years ago. 



Through all the Tertiary period (see p. 34) there 

 were numerous flowering plants, and there is evidence 

 that many families of both Monocotyledons and Dicoty- 

 ledons existed in the Upper Cretaceous times. Further 

 back than this we have little reliable testimony, for the 

 few specimens of so-called flowering plants from the 

 Lower Mesozoic are for the most part of a doubtful 

 nature. 



The flowering plants seem to stand much isolated 

 from the rest of the plant world; there is no direct evi- 

 dence of connection between their oldest representatives 

 and any of the more primitive families. So far as our 

 actual knowledge goes, they might have sprung into 

 being at the middle of the Mesozoic period quite inde- 

 pendently of the other plants then living; though there 

 are not wanting elaborate and almost convincing theories 

 of their connection with more than one group of their 

 predecessors (see p. 108). 



It is a peculiarly unfortunate fact that although the 

 rocks of the Cretaceous and Tertiary are so much less 

 ancient than those of the Coal Measures, they have pre- 

 served for us far less well the plants which were living 

 when they were formed. Hitherto no one has found in 

 Mesozoic strata masses of exquisitely mineralized Angio- 

 sperm fragments^ like those found in the Coal Measures, 



1 Material recently obtained by the author and Dr. Fujii in Japan does contain 

 some true petrifactions of Angiosperms and other plant debris. The account of these 

 discoveries has not yet been published. 



