174 



In his Presidential address to the Linnean Society, Mr. Deane referred to this phase of distribution, owing 

 to the warmer early Tertiary climate, and said : — " Taking into consideration the difference between the 

 Eocene and Miocene climate and that of the present period, we might expect to find existing types a few 

 degrees further south in the fossil state " (ap. cit.. p. 832, ante, p. 172). 



Mr. Chapman has also kindly shown me a Tertiary fossil leaf with the oblique venation, probably 

 a Eucalypt, from near Burnie, in Tasmania. 



The leaves described by Ettingshausen as Eucalypts, from Miocene beds at Emmaville (Vegetable 

 Creek) in latitude 29 J deg., include those with both the transverse and oblique venations, the former 

 predominating {infra, see pp. 180, 18!, and 182). 



The somewhat meagre fossil evidence available rather supports the idea that the transverse 

 venation belongs to the earliest form of Eucalyptus leaf, while it also goes to show that even the extreme or 

 parallel type of venation flourished in the south as far back at least as the Miocene period. After the. 

 Kosciusko uplift, and perhaps assisted by the glacial period in Pleistocene time, this latter type was enabled 

 to invade New South Wales from south to north by travelling along the Main Divide. 



Berry, 1916. — Professor E. W. Berry, in " Maryland Geological Survey, Upper 

 Cretaceous" (1916), p. 249, makes the following sweeping statement. I think it is so 

 vague and so unfair that it will probably be detrimental to his own honourable 

 reputation : — 



There have been more worthless articles written about the Cretaceous and Tertiary floras of 

 Australia than of any other equal area of the earth's surface. With the exception of Ettingshausen and 

 Ferd. von Mueller, none of the contributors appears to have had any knowledge of botany or any acquain- 

 tance with paleobotany. The. latter student did a small amount of admirable work on the fossil fruits of 

 the late Tertiary gold drifts. The former did pioneer work on the floras of what he. called Cretaceous and 

 Eocene. Since his day the age determinations have been shifted back and forth. The Eocene floras are 

 now considered Oligocene and Miocene. The Cretaceous flora he described may or may not be Cretaceous. 

 Ettingshausen deducted certain broad conclusions from his studies, the most notable being that as late as 

 the Tertiary, the Australian flora was not a provincial flora, but a part of the cosmopolitan flora. Doubtless 

 many of Ettingshausen's determinations are over-sanguine, and his comparisons in general w T ere with 

 European fossil floras rather than with existing Australian floras; at the same time it should be pointed 

 out that such a statement has a much greater theoretic probability when applied to the Cretaceous or 

 Eocene than when applied to the later Tertiary. 



The following were included by Ettingshausen (Ettingshausen, C. von, ' : Beitrage zur Kenntniss 

 der Kreideflora Australiens." Denks. k. Akad. Wiss. Wien, Bd. lxii, 1895, pp. 1-56, p. i-iv). 



* Eucalyptus cretacea, Eucalyptus Davidsoni, Eucalyptus Oxleyana, Eucalyptus scoliopliylla, 

 Eucalyptus Warraghiana (ali Ettingshausen). 



Patton, 1919. — In his " Notes on Eucalypt leaves occurring in the Tertiary 

 Beds at Bulla " (Victoria), by R, T. Patton, Proc. Roy. Soc. Vict., xxxi (New ser.), 362 

 (1919), with one text-plate, it is remarked that they " appear to belong to the same 

 general type. ... I do not think we are justified in making species out of material 

 which all conforms to a general type." 



I take it that the object in giving fossil Eucalyptus leaves full botanical names 

 is to label them for convenience of reference, a clumsy arrangement, but perhaps the 

 best that can be done. These fossil leaves reputed to be Eucalyptus can be said not to 

 belong to the same " general type " in the sense that they vary in venation, but no 

 fossil species yet discovered can be defined with any degree of precision comparable to 

 that possible in a living one. 



* The identity of this and the following forms with Eucalyptus is questionable. 





