488 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST 



[Vol. XL. 



Styria, recognize thirty varieties of which several are very close to 

 Comptonia, in fact were it not for the closely related intermediate 

 forms as well as the characteristic Myrica fruit, we would be jus- 

 tified in considering them as referable to Comptonia. 



Contemporaneous with the southward advance of Comptonia 

 in eastern North America, we find a like advance through north- 

 ern Europe via the then extended Scandinavian })eninsula, recorded 

 by a primitive species nf ( 'omptDnia \a)tii<j}ia Xilss.) from the 

 greensand of Kopinuc Sweden, followed by the a|)pearance of the 

 same specie^ in d'ransvl \ ania f ( euoniain'an >. This species is 

 very close to its American and An tic eoiiuvners. so similar that one 

 cannot but see in these leaver the >tron-vM ^-i t of an argument for 

 a common ancestry, a theory which iveeives additional strength, 

 not only from the form of the juvenile leaves of the existing species, 

 but also from the fact that there is nothing in our |)resent knowledge 

 of Horal distribution in past time or of the disposition of the land 

 masses of the northern hemisphere during the Mesozoic tluit does 

 other than add supi)ort to such a theorr. 



.^on.eanthor^ v- H-.m,,- and ^onde^ Afan-k u<.nld inelnde 

 Drunmlrn rnlan n of X'elenov.kv from th.' ( "enomaiiian of Ii<.l.eniia 



it differed from the contemporaneous Myrieas. the only diile 

 ence about which we know anythinn' i. the ditlVrence in leaf-forn 

 and the evolution of leaf-t'orin i> a eomn.iratix ely simple atVai 

 Still I think that the inordinate len-th nf theM- .p,-ei,h.ed leaxe 

 combined with the character of tli.' niat-inal MMrarion^, to-etlu 



certainly do not feel that the evidence i~. >ntlicieiii for makni:;' tl 

 change in generic aftiniiy >niiue>tcd. 



The upper Cretaceon's history of ( "onipfonia i. a l.lank in 



