C0NCLT7SI0N. 163 



Tegetation in botli tte Old and New Worlds; lie wrote in 1888 : 

 " We shall .... look now with eagerness to South America 

 for th& identification there of this Mesozoic flora, which we have 

 found in full development in Virginia, New Mexico, Sonora, and 

 now in Honduras. It has been recognised in Australia, New 

 Zealand, India, Tonquin, China, Turkestan, and various parts of 

 Europe. Hence with its discovery in South America we shall see 

 it reaching as a girdle around the entire globe." ' Before this was 

 written Geinitz ' had recorded Rhaetic plants from the Argentine, 

 and more recently Szajnocha, Solms-Laubach, and Kurtz have 

 made further contributions towards the completion of this girdle of 

 Rhfetic floras. One of the richest floras of the Rhsetic period is 

 that of Tonkin, which has recently received exhaustive treatment 

 by Professor Zeiller.^ The assemblage of types affords another 

 demonstration of the uniform character of the vegetation of this 

 period ; it is true that a few types which occupy a prominent 

 j)osition in the Ehsetio floras of Scania and Franconia have not 

 been recorded from Tonkin, but in its general composition the 

 vegetation of the Far East exhibits a striking agreement with that 

 of the northern hemisphere. 



Lias. — The vegetation which has left traces in rocks of Liassic 

 age differs but little from that of the Rhsetic period, and indeed it 

 is often almost impossible to distinguish clearly between floras of 

 the two periods. 



The plant which I have referred to TMnnfeldia rhomboidalis is 

 an example of a genus which was very widely spread in both the 

 Rhsetic and Liassic periods. A similar form, though probably 

 distinct specifically, originally described by Morris * as Pecopteris 

 odontopteroides (= TMnnfeldia odontopteroides), is an exceedingly 

 abundant fossil in the Stormberg Series of Cape Colony, in beds of 

 Rhsetic age in Australia, and in South America. The two species 

 of Cycadeoidea, C. gracilis and C. pygmaa, are in all probability 

 not peculiar to England ; but it is impossible to define specific 



' Newberry (88). 



2 Geinitz (76). 



3 Zeiller (02), (03). 



* Morris (45), p. 249, pi. vi. flgs. 2-4. 



