1534 



CORMOPHYTA. 



Fig. 1403. — Branch of A rau- 

 caria (Pagiophylluni)divaricata ; 

 from the Upper Gondwanas of 

 Cach. (After Feistmantel.) 



Pagiophyllum, is regarded by Dr Schenk as inseparable from the 

 existing genus. The extinct genus Cunninghamites is founded on 

 branches which appear to closely resemble those of the existing 

 Cunninghamia of China ; it occurs in the Upper Cretaceous and 

 Miocene of the Continent, and the Cretaceous of the United States. 

 Finally, the genus A/bertia, from the Bun- 

 ter of Alsace and the Lower Gondwanas 

 of India, may be mentioned here, although 

 it is not certain that its true position is 

 not with the AbietinecE. 



The family Taxodinece is another ancient 

 type represented from the Permian up- 

 wards. The leaves are generally more or 

 less linear, and may be arranged in two 

 rows, or crowded together at the ends of 

 the branches. In Taxodium and Glypto- 

 strobus the lateral shoots are deciduous. 

 The oldest genus is Voltzia (Glyptolepis, 

 Glyptolepidiuvi), of the Permian and Trias 

 of Europe and the Lower Gondwanas of 

 India ; followed by the allied Leptostro- 

 bus, of the Lower Jurassic of Siberia. 

 Cydopitys, again, from the latter deposits 

 and the Lower Gondwanas of India, is considered to be an ancestral 

 type of the existing Sciadopitys of Japan, which connects the typical 

 members of the family with the Abietinecz. The genus Taxodium 

 is now known by two species from North America, of which T. 

 distichum dates from the Upper division of the Laramie beds, and 

 occurs also in the Eocene of Utah, whence it can be traced through 

 the Tertiaries of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Spitzbergen, and 

 thus to the Upper Miocene of GEningen in Switzerland. The closely 

 allied Glyptostrobus of China, readily characterised by the sculptured 

 scales of the cones and small leaves, has a somewhat analogous dis- 

 tributional history ; thus it first appears in the Lower Cretaceous 

 of Greenland, and is also found in the upper part of the same sys- 

 tem ; thence it extends in one direction through Arctic America to 

 the United States, where it is found in the topmost beds of the 

 Laramie, and in another to Europe, where its range extends from 

 the Lower Miocene (Oligocene) to the Pliocene ; G. europeus being 

 common to Europe and the Laramie beds. The well-known Sequoia 

 ( Wellingtonia), in which the scales of the cones, instead of imbri- 

 cating as in the preceding genera, form woody pyramids at right 

 angles to the axis, is now known by two Californian species. Of 

 these S. sempervirens has erect leaves arranged in two rows and 

 small round cones ; while S. gigantea, the " Big tree," has smaller 



