168 



FOSSIL PLANTS ATTRIBUTED TO EUCALYPTUS. 



Endlicher, 1840. — Endlicher {Genera Plantarum, 1836-1840) was a pioneer in 

 recording fossil plants in their proper systematic position in comparison with existing 

 plants. Thus he records fossils in Marsiliaceis affinis (Sphenophyllum), Isoetaceae, 

 Lycopodiaceas, Lepidodendrse, Cycadaceae, and perhaps others. He does not take 

 cognisance of Eucalyptus ; indeed, I do not think a fossil Eucalypt had been described 

 up to 1840. 



Hooker, 1853. — Hooker (in Hooker's Journ. Bot., vol. v, p. 415, 1853) made 

 an early protest in regard to deductions from inadequate data, although he did not, at 

 this date, make any reference to Eucalyptus in this connection. 



We regret also to observe a tendency on the part of the author of the pamphlet before us 

 ('' Pflanzenverbreitung una Pflanzenwanderung," by Dr. Herman Hoffmann, Darmstadt, 1853) to place a 

 degree of reliance on the identification of fossil species of plants with those now existing, which we do not 

 by any means think the materials usually at the disposal of fossil botanists can warrant. Everyone who 

 is accustomed to the handling of large masses of plants must have felt the great difficulty of referring 

 specimens without flowers or fruit to the Natural Orders. How much more difficult, then, must it be to 

 identify fossil specimens, chiefly single leaves, with living species ! a thing now often done, with the utmost 

 confidence, on exceedingly slender grounds. We should not like to be obliged to distinguish fragments of 

 dried specimens of Pinus Pumilo from Pinus sylvestris, or from a great many other Pines; and yet our 

 author tells us, on the authority of Goppert, that the former of these so-called species is found in Miocene 

 strata in Germany. Such hasty references are, in our opinion, particularly dangerous, and likely to lead 

 to a great deal of mischief. 



A few years later he remarked :— 

 " Wesel and Weber describe from the brown coal of the Rhine a rich and varied flora, representing 

 numerous families never now seen associated, and including some of the peculiar and characteristic genera 

 of the Australian, South African, American, Indian and European Floras.'' (Hooker, "Introd. Essay," 

 Fl Tas., p. xxi, 1861.) 



In a footnote Hooker says — 

 " See Quart. J own. Geol. Soc. XV, Misc. 3, where an abstract is given, with some excellent cautions, 

 by C. J. F. Bunbury. The Australian genera include Eucalyptus, Casuarina, Leptomeria, Tem-pletonia, 

 Banksla, Dryandra and Hahea. I am not prepared to assert that these identifications, or the Australian 

 ones of the Mollasse, are also so unsatisfactory that the evidence of Australian types in the brown coal and 

 Mollasse should be altogether set aside; but I do consider that not one of the above-named genera is 

 identified at all satisfactorily, and that many of them are not even problematically decided." 



Unger, 1861. — Prof. Franz Unger, of the University of Vienna, delivered in 

 1861 a lecture (" Neu Holland in Europa," Braunm tiller), which, under the title " New 

 Holland in Europe," was translated and published in Journ. Bot. iii, 39 (1865). It is 

 well illustrated (though not with Eucalyptus), is charmingly written, and gives an 

 interesting account of the views then held in regard to the relations of the European 

 and Australian floras in the Eocene period. 



Following are some extracts from the paper : — 

 "'. . . . I proceed to prove that New Holland exercised a decisive influence on the formation 

 of our much favoured continent (Europe) and, paradoxical as it may sound, contributed to make it what 

 it is . , . When New Holland stood in the connection I allude to with Europe . . . and the soil 

 covered with plants . . . the continent (New Holland) was youthful and vigorous, full of precious 

 germs destined for distribution over the globe " (p. 40), 



