262 



FOSSIL PLANTS OF 



Fig. 19S. 



[Ch. XV. 



Fie;. 199. 



Fig. 198. 



Fig. 199. 



Fig. 200. 



Fig. 200 



a. Leaf of Dryandroides JTaJtecefoUa. Lower Miocene. £ nat. size. Monod, near 



Lausanne. (Heer, pi. 98, fig. 6.) 

 5. Small portion of the same magnified. (Heer, pi. 98, fig. 13.) 



Rakea exulata. Hohen Khonen, Switzerland. Lower Miocene. Nat. size. (Heer, 



pi. 98, fig. 19.) 

 Dryandra SchranMi. 



Monod. Lower Miocene, i nat. size. (Heer, pi. 98, fig. 20 &.) 



Heer, of dry hilly ground, and the stiff leathery character of then- 

 leaves must have been favorable to their preservation, allowing them 

 to float on a river for great distances without being injured and then 

 to sink, when water-logged, to the bottom. It has been objected by 

 some botanists that the fruit of the Proteacese is of so tough and en- 

 during a texture that it ought to have been more commonly met 

 with, instead of being restricted to a single example like that of the 

 HaJcea saligna before mentioned (fig. 191, p. 255) ; but the season of 

 fructification in these plants may not have coincided with that of the 

 most active sedimentary deposition, and there may be other reasons 

 for the absence of the fruit of which we are at present ignorant. 

 Some mistakes have certainly been made, and Count Saporta has 

 shown that one plant formerly referred to Dryandroides, and of which 

 he discovered the fruit, really belongs to the bog-myrtle, or sweet-gale 

 tribe (Myrica). But there is no reason to question the general accu- 

 racy of the determination of the fossil Proteaceas. Those of the cre- 

 taceous marls of Aix-la-Chapelle were formerly disputed, but fortu- 

 nately the leaves in that case, notwithstanding their antiquity, are so 

 much better preserved than any known Miocene plants, that their epi- 

 dermis can be examined microscopically. A leaf from Aix which, 

 from its form and nervation, had been referred to the genus Grevillca, 

 was found, when submitted to this test, to have regular and polygonal 

 cellules resembling in shape and thickness those of the living G. 

 oleoides of Australia. 



The eight or nine species of fig (Ficus) which are met with at Mo- 

 nod and Rivaz, have their nearest living analogues in the hotter parts 

 of India, Africa, and America. Among the Coniferse the Sequoia, 



