BOTANY. 45 
Still less can it be said of the Mesozoic period that its fossil 
remains convey any adequate notion of the contemporary facies of 
the vegetation. The cones and driftwood that occur in rocks of 
marine formation of this age would have been little injured by 
immersion in water in which the flowers and foliage of less rigid 
plants would speedily have decomposed beyond recognition. Such 
guesses as we can make about the actual vegetation of Mesozoic 
land surfaces stand in the same relation to the reality as do those 
which a traveller would make in approaching a new country 
from the ocean, and in collecting the vegetable waifs and strays 
borne out to sea by currents, to the estimate which he afterwards 
forms when he botanizes at leisure on the land itself. It is, 
however, only fair to admit that if arborescent Dicotyledons 
existed to any large extent anterior to the chalk, it is hardly expli- 
cable that we have as yet no evidence from driftwood that this 
was the fact, except Mr. Sorby’s notice of some non-gyimnosper- 
mous wood from the Lias near Bristol,* which appears to have 
been overlooked. In the “ dirt-bed” of the Upper Oolite we 
have a true land surface, but the ligneous plants of this were 
undoubtedly gymnospermous. It is far from improbable however 
that, at any rate, herbaceous Dicotyledons had made their appear- 
ance in the Mesozoic period. Monocotyledons, as already pointed 
out, are certainly known to date from a time still earlier, and in 
the herbaceous condition Dicotyledons are less different from 
Monocotyledons than when they become woody. Several facts 
seem to prove that existing trees are more modern than herba- 
ceous plants belonging to the same groups. They have, for 
example, more confined ranges, and often represent on oceanic 
islands, apparently because the exaltation of their stature has had 
less to struggle against, orders which elsewhere comprise only 
herbaceous plants. Probably in every group the arborescent habit 
has been a subsequent development. — W. T. THISELTON 2 
in The Academy. 
SEEDS as ProsectiLes. — Editors of Naturalist: Allow me the © 
favor to correct the phraseology I, by some unaccountable slip of 
the tongue, employed in referring to the Hamamelis seed. Itis 
the çontracting of the horny endocarp not the horny “albumen,” 
which projects the seeds.—Tuomas MEEHAN. 
> Bret . 
12 Pipu ti n ol 
oF 7 EF 
