169 



He alleges that the European Eocene contains Eucalyptus. " Of several species the peculiar leaves, 

 as well as the fruit, have been found " (p. 4-2). Prof. Unger was sometimes content with very little, for 

 he goes on to say — " The same is the case with the Epacrids, although as yet only a single leaf furnishes 

 evidence of the former existence of this now widely-diffused natural order." [The italics are mine.] 



Then follows a list of all those plants hitherto (1861) discovered in the Eocene 

 formation (of Europe) having analogous species in New Holland or any other part 

 of the southern hemisphere. There is a remarkably long list of genera and species. 

 It is not surprising that when one gets to the Proteacese we find large numbers of species 

 attributed to individual genera. When one has had experience with the marvellous 

 protean character of the leaves of this Family, the list almost takes one's breath away. 



" After this review, showing what a considerable portion of the Australian and Polynesian flora was 

 already represented by characteristic types in the Eocene vegetation, there can no longer be any doubt that 

 Europe stood in some kind of connection villi that distant continent (Australia)." 



He 1 ^aen discusses the European forests formed of Araucarias instead of Pines 



(Pinus, &c.) and the underwood of Proteacese, Santalese, &c, instead of Rhamni, Privets, 



and Hazels, and concludes that at the Eocene period Europe must have had a climate 



like that of New Holland at the present day (p. 44). 



" Nothing remains but to assume that cither the New Holland plants emigrated to Europe, or (what 

 is less probable) the former European plants, which had an Australian character, passed from Europe to 

 New Holland '" (p. -16). He then goes on to discuss theories and possibilities of migration of plants between 

 the two continents. " The continental connection of Australia and Europe during the Eocene period is 

 consequently a necessary assumption . . . incontrovcrtibly . . . that the highway by which the 

 New Holland plants passed to Europe led through Asia ..." (p. 48). 



The European fossils attributed to Eucalyptus enumerated in his paper are — 



E. Radobojana Ett. (Radoboj); E. Mgea Ung. (Ivumi) ; E. Hceringiana Ett. 

 (Haring) ; E. oceanica Ung. (widely distributed, for Unger records it from 

 Sotzka, Haring, Sagor, Monod, Thalheim, Sinigagtia, Salcedo, Chiavon, Nocale, 

 Pastelio (Verona). 



There is a brief account of Franz Joseph Andreas Nicholaus Unger by Bentham 

 in Proc. Linn. Hoc, 1870, p. -cxii. He was born 30th November, 1800, at Leitschach, 

 in Styria. He died mysteriously at Graz on 13th February, 1870. He published 

 '" Genera et Species Plantarum Fossilium " in 1850, and Bentham says that a biblio- 

 graphy of his works will be found in the Botanische Zeitung of 22nd April, 1870. 



Bentham, 1870. — For some criticisms on Unger's work and consideration as to 

 " what place a leaf really holds in systematic botany," we have some remarks by 

 Bentham in a Presidential address. He says : — 



" Would any experienced systematic botanist, however acute, on the sole examination of an unknown 

 leaf, presume to determine, not only its Natural Order and genus, but its precise characters as an 

 unpublished species? . . . ." 



" Palaeontologists have ... in the majority of these Tertiary deposits, had nothing to work 

 upon but detached leaves or fragments of leaves, exhibiting only outward form, venation, and to a certain 

 degree, epidermal structure, all of which characters may be referred to that class which Prof . Flower, in his 

 introductory lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons (February, 1870), has so aptly designated as adaptive, 

 in contradistinction to essential and fundamental characters." (Pioc. Linn. Foe. lxxxiii, 1870.) 



