PHANEROGAMS. I 5 3 5 



leaves crowded together, and larger egg-shaped cones. It is re- 

 markable that these two types are represented by allied species in 

 the Lower Cretaceous, where we also find species which are inter- 

 mediate, and both types continue right through the Tertiaries of 

 Europe and North America, which are connected by the Greenland 

 deposits ; while one species has also been found in the Eocene of 

 Australia. Altogether twenty-six species are known. 



" This," as Sir J. W. Dawson observes, " is perhaps the most remarkable 

 record in the whole history of vegetation. The Sequoias are the giants 

 of the Conifers — the grandest representatives of the family — and the 

 fact that, after spreading over the whole northern hemisphere and attain- 

 ing to more than twenty specific forms, their decaying remnant should 

 now be confined to one limited region in America, and to two species, 

 constitutes a sad memento of departed greatness. The small remnant 

 of 6". gigtmtea still, however, towers above all competitors as eminently 

 the ' big trees ' ; but had they and the allied species failed to escape the 

 Tertiary continental submergences and the disasters of the glacial period 

 this grand genus would have been to us an extinct type. In like manner 

 the survival of the single Gingko of Eastern Asia alone enables us to 

 understand that great series of taxine trees with fan-like leaves of which 

 it is now the sole representative." 



Gei?iitzia, from the Upper Cretaceous and Lower Tertiary of both 

 Europe and North America, appears to connect the preceding with 

 the following genus : it has alternating branches, with two rows of 

 small sickle-shaped leaves, between which are scale-like leaves and 

 elongated persistent cones. Brachyphyllu7?i is characterised by its 

 extremely short and thick scale-like leaves, which are spirally ar- 

 ranged ; it occurs in Europe from the Rhaetic to the Wealden, and 

 is also found in the North American Cretaceous. An allied extinct 

 genus is the remarkable Echinostrobus, of the Upper Jurassic of 

 Europe and the Indian Upper Gondwanas, in which the stem is 

 flattened, and the branches are covered with imbricating scale-like 

 leaves ; while the club-like cones are borne at the summits of short 

 lateral branches. Other extinct genera of this family are Cyparis- 

 sidium from the Rhaetic and Upper Cretaceous of Europe ; hiolepis 

 of the Upper Cretaceous of Greenland ; Chirolepis from the Rhaetic 

 and Lias of France and Switzerland ; and Szvedenborgia from the 

 Rhaetic of Palsjo. 



The Cnpressi7iece, including the Cypresses, Junipers, and Thujas, 

 are moderate sized or shrub-like trees, usually with very minute 

 scale-like leaves closely adherent to the branches, and generally 

 arranged in two, although sometimes in three or four rows. In 

 some cases, however, the leaves are linear, especially in the young. 

 This family dates from the Upper Trias, and is represented at the 

 present day by some twelve genera. One of the earliest known 

 genera is Widdringtonites, from the Keuper of the Continent and the 



