No. 501] THE FLORISSANT EXPEDITION OF 1908 577 



the flowers were borne in clusters, and so in all respects 

 they seem to agree sufficiently with Kibes, except for the 

 insuperable difficulty of the eight stamens. The eight 

 stamens would agree with Weinmannia, but the flower 

 otherwise seems discordant, judging from the descrip- 

 tions—I have never seen a Weinmannia flower. Both 

 Weinmannia and Kibes are represented by leaves in the 

 shale. 



The Problem of the Proteace^e 

 The Proteaceab- constitute a rather large and very char- 

 acteristic family, with over 950 living species, almost 

 confined to the Southern Hemisphere. Nearly 600 are 

 Australian ; New Caledonia has 27, New Zealand 2, Chile 

 7, tropical South America 36, South Africa over 250, 

 Madagascar 2, and the mountains of tropical Africa about 

 5. These particulars are taken from Engler (1894), 

 probably the numbers should now be somewhat increased. 

 The genus Helicia, with some 25 species, is Indo- 

 Malayan, and extends north of the equator as far as the 

 Himalayas. 



One of the most remarkable discoveries— if such it be 

 — of paleobotany is that of the occurrence of Proteaceae 

 in abundance in the Tertiaries of the Northern Hemis- 

 phere. In Ettinghausen's work on the fossil flora of, 

 Haring (1853) numerous remains of leaves are figured, 

 together with drawings of recent species of Proteaceae. 

 The resemblances are not merely close ; it is not too much 

 to say that the oligocene leaves look practically identical 

 with their modern representatives. Furthermore the 

 resemblances are not shown in one or two types only, but 

 extend throughout a considerable series; nor are they 

 confined to the leaves— the determinations in some in- 

 stances are fortified by characteristic-looking seeds. 

 Even the peculiar fruits of Persoonia are shown. Such 

 evidence looked convincing enough to Ettinghausen, and 

 a priori, there seemed to be no obstacle. The distribution 

 of the Proteaceae to-day seemed to be that of a group once 

 world-wide, but now driven to the ends of the earth by 

 the stress of competition. This would agree well with 



