x STUDIES IN FOSSIL BOTANY 



year, M. Zeiller's feUments de Paleobotanique, all of 

 them, in their several ways, admirable hand-books for 

 the student of paleobotany. 



My purpose has been quite a different one, namely, 

 to present to the botanical reader those results of 

 palaeontological inquiry which appear to be of funda- 

 mental importance from the botanist's point of view. 

 Such far-reaching results have, at present, related almost 

 entirely to two of the vegetable Subkingdoms, the 

 Pteridophytes and the Gymnosperms, and it is to 

 these Subkingdoms that the " Studies " are confined. 



Within these limits, the value of the fossil evidence 

 already available is manifest, though as yet hardly 

 realised by botanists. The last few years, however, 

 have seen a considerable advance in this respect, and 

 we may hope that the palaeontological record will no 

 longer "be ignored by students of the evolution of 

 plants. 



The present book, while it assumes no previous 

 knowledge of fossil plants, presupposes a general 

 acquaintance with recent botany, and with the rudi- 

 ments, though only the rudiments, of geology. The 

 terminology employed will be familiar to the botanical 

 student ; in the few cases where new or less usual 

 terms are introduced, their explanation is given. Only 

 two points seem to require notice here. The term 

 tracheae is used in the wide sense adopted by De Bary, 

 to cover both the vessels of the wood (arising by 

 cell -fusion) and the tracheides (consisting of single 

 cells). 1 Other authors have used the word in more 



1 De Bary, Comparative Anatomy of the Phanerogams and Ferns, 

 English edition, 1884, p. 155. 



