40 GEOLOGY. 



Cheirolepis (Fig. 338, 6), Albertia, and Ullmania. The ginkgos were 

 represented by Baiera. It does not appear from the record that any 

 of these gymnosperms were especially large, but on the contrary rather 

 dwarfish, the conifers bearing the aspects now found on sandy barrens 

 and arid tracts. The calamites had given place to true equiseta, 

 which were represented by forms that were gigantic in comparison 

 with modern types. In the far east and in the southern hemisphere, 

 the Glossopteris and its allies constituted a marked feature of a flora 

 whose general aspect was much like that of the preceding Permian 

 in that quarter. The Triassic floras of Europe and America, so far 

 as known, were much alike and bore a scrawny pauperitic aspect that 

 reflected the hostile conditions against which they struggled, condi- 

 tions for which the stunted conifers of to-day stand as representatives. 

 In the closing stages of the period, the Rhaetic epoch and its equiva- 

 lents, there seems to have been much amelioration of the previous 

 hostile conditions and a much ampler development of the flora. The 

 larger part of the known American fossils belong to this stage. In 

 favored portions of the Newark series from Connecticut to North 

 Carolina, plant remains occur, and in the coal-beds of the latter state 

 and of Virginia, the flora is more amply represented. The Richmond 

 coal-beds are regarded by Fontaine 1 as the product of marsh vegeta- 

 tion accumulating where it grew, while the Carolinian deposit shows 

 more evidence of in wash, and represents the vegetation of the adjacent 

 country. The habitats represented by the fossils of the more northerly 

 states are less clear, but it is doubtful whether any represent the typical 

 upland-inland vegetation. 2 The coal-beds of Virginia contain immense 

 numbers of equiseta and ferns, but almost no conifers and but few 

 cycadeans; the North Carolina deposits, comparatively few ferns, but 

 many conifers and cycadeans. As this distribution implies that the 

 conifers were not marsh plants, the pseudoxerophytic peculiarities 

 of such plants cannot be appealed to in explanation of the markedly 

 xerophytic aspect of the Triassic conifers, as was done in the case 



1 Mon. VI, U. S. Geol. Surv., 1883. 



2 The older Mesozoic plants of this region have been made the subject of a special 

 memoir by Fontaine, Mon. VI, U. S. Geol. Surv., 1883; those of New Jersey and 

 Connecticut by Newberry, Mon. XIV, U. S. Geol. Surv.; and all have been sum- 

 marized by Ward, Twentieth Ann. Rept. U. S. Geol. Surv.', Pt. II, 1898-99, in which 

 there is reference to all previous writers, and quotations from the valuable paper of 

 Wanner. 



