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1885. | © Evolution in the Vegetable Kingdom. 745 
EVOLUTION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 
BY LESTER F. WARD, A.M. 
(Continued from p. 644, Fuly number.) 
II. GEOLOGICAL VIEW. 
` The most ancient fossil remains that have been referred to the 
vegetable kingdom are two species of Oldhamia from the Cam- 
brian deposits of Ireland, but the vegetable character of these 
forms has been latterly called in question. From the Lower 
Silurian forty-four species, chiefly marine alge, have been named. 
Among these, however, are included the earliest terrestrial forms. 
Not to mention the problematical Aupterts morieret of Saporta, we 
have Sphenophyllum primevum Lx., and two other vascular plants 
from the Cincinnati group. In the Upper Silurian thirteen spe- 
cies are recorded, five of which are vascular plants. One of these 
is Cordaites robbit Dawson, found in the Silurian of Hérault as 
well as in the Devonian of Canada. The Devonian furnishes 188 
species of fossil plants, while from the Permo-Carboniferous 
nearly two thousand species are known, or nearly nine-tenths of 
the entire Palzeozoic flora. 
With the Mesozoic a great diminution appears in the abundance 
of vegetable life that has been preserved. Only sixty-seven spe- 
cies have been found in the whole of the Trias. With the Rhetic 
a new impulse is felt increasing through the Lias and reaching a 
second but much reduced maximum in the Oodlite, from which 
419 species are recorded. The wave then again recedes until 
the close of the Gault is reached. 
The Cenomanian of Europe, with the beds of Atane in Green- 
land and the Dakota group of the United States which probably 
correspond to it, mark a new epoch, supplying together nearly five 
hundred species of fossil plants. That member of the Cretaceous 
formation which immediately overlies the Cenomanian, viz., the 
Turonian, to which the Fort Benton group of American rocks 
seems to belong, is almost destitute in both countries of vegeta- 
ble remains, but with the Senonian we meet again the increasing 
voiume which was merely interrupted by unfavorable conditions 
for the preservation of plants. Here we have in European strata, 
in Patoot, Greenland, and in British Columbia 354 species. Al- 
though none have yet been described from this horizon within 
the territory of the United States, I have myself demonstrated 
