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FLEET me edits Se OEM a a mega sn 
SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 591 
I am bound to state that, in a recent general work * by a distin- 
guished European botanist, Prof. Grisebach of Gottingen, these 
_ facts have been emptied of all special significance, and the rela- 
tions between the Japanese and the Atlantic United States floras 
declared to be no more intimate than might be expected from the 
situation, climate, and present opportunity of interchange. This 
extraordinary conclusion is reached by regarding as distinct 
species all the plants common to both countries between which any 
differences have been discerned, although such differences would 
probably count for little if the two inhabited the same country, thus 
transferring many of my list of identical to that of representative 
species ; and, then, by simply eliminating from consideration the 
whole array of representative species, i. e., all cases in which the 
Japanese and the American plant are not exactly alike. As if, by 
pronouncing the cabalistic word species the question were settled, . 
or rather the greater part of it remanded out of the domain of sci- 
ence ;—as if, while complete identity of forms implied commu- 
nity of origin, anything short of it carried no presumption of the 
kind; so leaving all these singular duplicates to „be wondered at, 
indeed, but wholly beyond the reach of inquiry! 
Now the only known cause of such likeness is inheritance ; and 
as all transmission of likeness is with some difference in individ- 
uals, and as changed conditions have resulted, as is well known, 
in very considerable differences, it seems to me that, if the high 
antiquity of our actual vegetation could be rendered probable, not 
to say certain, and the former habitation of any of our species 
or of very near relatives of them in high northern regions could 
be ascertained, my whole case would be made out. The needful 
facts, of which I was ignorant when my essay was published, have 
how been for some years made known, — thanks, mainly, to the re- 
searches of Heer upon ample collections of arctic fossil plants. 
hese are confirmed and extended by new investigations, by Heer 
and Lesquereux, the results of which have been indicated to me by 
the latter, 
The Taxodium, which everywhere abounds in the miocene form- 
ations in Europe, has been specially identified, first by Geeppert, 
then by Heer, with our common cypress of the Southern States. 
It has been found, fossil, in Spitzbergen, Greenland and Alaska, 
ee ee A EA E a a a a 
* Die Vegetation der Erde nach ihrer klimatischen Anordnung. 1871. 
