1879.] 



On the Fossil Flora of Sheppey. 



389 



tion generally, is the London Clay of the Isle of Sheppey, in which are 

 found great numbers of plant remains belonging to many different 

 kinds of fossil fruits and seeds. After an examination of the rich 

 collection in the British Museum, I feel now sure that we possess, in 

 the fruits and seeds of Sheppey, the key to a more precise determina- 

 tion of many of the genera and species of fossil plants which in other 

 localities are known only by their leaves . 



The literature of the Sheppey fruits is not very extensive ; a detailed 

 account of all the works relating to it is published in Mr. Gardner's 

 "Introduction to our Monograph on the British Eocene Flora." 

 Paheontographical Society, 1879, p. 11. The only work on this 

 subject with scientific determinations, and which need here be referred 

 to, was published in the year 1840 by James Scott Bowerbank, and is 

 entitled " A History of the Fossil Fruits and Seeds of the London 

 Clay." He enumerates twelve genera, which are divided by him into 

 nine families. The genera are as follows : Nipadites, Hightea, Petro- 

 philoides, Cupressinites, Cupanoides, Tricarpellites, Wetherellia, Cucu- 

 mites, Faboidea, Leguminosites, Mimosites, Xulinosprionites. Of these 

 only one (Nipadites), belongs to the Monocotyledons and one (Cupres- 

 sinites) to the Gymnosperinaa, while the rest are Dicotyledons. 



I am now able materially to advance the knowledge of this Flora. 

 Since my investigations in the course of the winter 1878-9, at the 

 British Museum, I have ascertained that the Fossil Flora of Sheppey 

 contains, including those above mentioned, at. least 72 genera and 

 200 species, which may be distributed into 41 families. Of these 

 genera one belongs to the Thallophyta, 7 to the Gymnospermas, 18 to 

 Monocotyledons, 43 to the Dicotylecfcms, and 3 are indeterminable. 



The existence of . this Flora and generally of the Eocene Flora of 

 Great Britain required, we believe, at least, a sub-tropical climate. This 

 is indicated by many of the ferns and palms, and by the Musaceae, 

 Pandanas, Cinchonaceee, Loganiaceae, Sapotaceas, Ebenaceas, Biittneria- 

 ceae, Sapindaceas, &c. 



Some only of the fossil fruits and seeds of Sheppey can be placed 

 in living genera, but with regard to the rest, forming a considerable 

 part of these, it was impossible, notwithstanding a careful comparison. 

 I therefore assume that some of the fruits and seeds belong to genera 

 which no longer exist in the present Flora of the world. In several of 

 these extinct genera, however, I recognise their affinity with living 

 genera, or at least determine the family to which they belong. I have 

 expressed this in the name of the genus. But with many even that 

 was impossible, and these I have placed in the meantime under the 

 provisional name Carpolithes. It is an important fact that the 

 number of such extinct forms is relatively much larger than it is in 

 any of the already knowm Miocene Floras. I have also discovered 

 fruits, but chiefly leaves belonging to many of the genera of the 



