DEVELOPMENT AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE LEGUMINOS#. 363 
Nevertheless, inspite of all these facts, the best geological 
text books to-day perpetuate these unscientific conclusions 
—conclusions based upon evidence which no systematist of 
note would endorse for living plants, and conclusions which 
appear to have given such an utterly false idea of plant 
development and of geography in Cretaceous and Tertiary 
time. No real advance may be expected with regard to 
the age and development of the dicotyledons, and, inci- 
dentally, of Leguminosze and Myrtacez, unless unreliable 
determinations are to be discarded in dealing with matters 
of such importance. All lines of evidence must converge 
if truth is to be attained, and palzeobotany should be sub- 
mitted to the rigorous methods employed in modern angio- 
spermous classification by systematists such as Hooker, 
Bentham, Lindley, Asa Grey, Engler, and even Ettings- 
hausen himself. 
Some Principles of Geographical Distribution. 
The orders of plants considered in this chapter are 
Leguminose and Myrtacee. 
The great genera of Leguminose occur, as a rule, in the 
open country, and they frequent the poorer, rather than 
the richer, soil. They are composed mainly also of herbs, 
undershrubs, shrubs or small trees, rarely forest trees. A 
careful study of Taubert’s learned and comprehensive 
article on Leguminose, in ‘* Pflanzenfamilien’’ would 
enlighten the reader on this point. As examples may be 
quoted Astragalus, with about 1,250 species, from the 
plains, steppes, and wastes, of temperate Eurasia, and 
America; Acacia, with about 700 species occupying subarid 
and open lands in most regions, although some species fre- 
quent thick forests. Cassia, Crotalaria, Ononis, Lotononis, 
Genista, Ulex, Pultenza, Dillwynia, Aspalathus, Daviesia, 
Tephrosia, Indigofera, Swainsona, Medicago, Rhynchosia, 
Psoralea, and others, may be cited in this connection. 
