
Parr UL Sucr. iii. §1.] CRETACEOUS. “> 3868 
Life.—The Cretaceous system, both in Europe and North 
America, presents successive platforms on which the land vegetation 
of the period has been preserved, though most of the strata contain 
only marine organisms. ‘This terrestrial flora possesses a great 
interest, for it includes the earliest known progenitors of the abun- 
dant dicotyledonous angiosperms of the present day. In the earlier 
part of the Cretaceous period, it appears to have closely resembled the 
vegetation of the previous ages, for the same genera of ferns, cycads, 
and conifers, which formed the Jurassic woodlands, are found in the 
rocks. Yet that angiosperms must have already existed is made 
almost certain by the sudden appearance of numerous forms of that 
class, at the base of the Upper Cretaceous formation in Saxony and 
Bohemia, whence forms of Acer, Alnus, Credneria, Cunninghamites, 
Salix, &c., have been obtained. Still more varied and abundant is 
the dicotyledonous flora preserved in the highest zones of the system 
at Aix-la-Chapelle. The number of species of plants obtained from 
that locality has been estimated by M. Debey at more than 400. Of 

Fig. 388.—CrETACEOUS FORAMINIFERA. 
a, Gaudryina pupoides (D’Orb.); 6, Globigerina cretacea (D’Orb.); ¢, Cristellaria 
rotulata (D’Orb.) (all magnified). 
these 70 or 80 are cryptogams, chiefly ferns (Gleichenia, Lygodium, 
Asplenium, &c.); there are numerous conifers (some akin to Sequova), 
and three or four kinds of serew-pine(Pandanus). ‘The prevalent forms 
which give so modern an aspect to this flora are Proteacex, many of 
them being referred to genera still living in Australia or at the Cape 
of Good Hope. ‘There occur also species of oak, bog-myrtle, &c. 
These interesting fraements serve to show that the climate of Europe 
at the close of the Cretaceous period was doubtless greatly warmer 
than that which now prevails, and nourished a vegetation like that 
of some parts of Australia or the Cape. Further information has 
been afforded regarding the extension of this flora by the discovery 
in North Greenland of a remarkable series of fossil plants. From 
certain Lower Cretaceous beds of that arctic region, Heer has 
described 30 species of ferns, 9 cycads, and 17 conifers; while from 
the Upper Cretaceous rocks of Noursoak, he enumerates species of 
poplar, fig, sassafras, credneria, and magnolia. | 
- In North America, also, abundant remains of a similar vegetation 
have been obtained from the Cretaceous rocks of the es Terri- 
a Wa 
