18 Mr. J. Starkie Gardner. Fossil Plants and the [Dec. 18, 



The Lough Neagh Beds. 



The flora of these beds presents characters that are difficult to 

 reconcile. The beds have been pierced to a depth of nearly 300 feet 

 without base, and their accumulation must therefore represent a vast 

 interval of time, during which many changes in the character of the 

 flora of the snrrounding country may, or I might venture to say 

 must, have taken place. The flora is evidently one of very great 

 variety, and almost entirely dicotyledonous. Though plant remains 

 appear to be abundant throughout the entire thickness, we are only 

 acquainted with them through their impressions in ironstone nodules, 

 picked up on the shore of Sandy Bay, and these it seems likely are for 

 the most part from the upper beds of the formation. I have deter- 

 mined but very few of them. 



Ferns.— Two species have been described by Mr. Baily : one, 

 Lastrcea stiriaca, ranges in time from the Middle Eocene to the 

 Miocene, and in distance from Greenland to Switzerland and Devon- 

 shire, where it abounds at Bovey Tracey. The second, Goniopteris 

 Bunburii, Heer, is rare at Bovey, but commoner at Bournemouth, and 

 does not, I think, occur in Greenland. 



Conifers. — I have not seen any conifer myself, but Mr. Baily's list 

 mentions Sequoia Couttsice, which I think may be a form of the 

 Cupressus of Ballypalady ; Ephedra also occurs. 



Monocotyledons. — The most interesting discovery is that of a 

 Dioscorea, identical with one of the most abundant and characteristic 

 leaves at Bournemouth, mentioned sometimes as a Cinnamon. It is 

 also met with in the Aquitanian stage of Switzerland, and seems to 

 occupy and denote a very definite zone of age, as it is wanting in the 

 newer English Eocenes. 



Dicotyledons. — One nodule contained several leaves of Platanus, 

 identical with the Reading form and characteristic in England of the 

 Reading beds, below the London Clay. Another leaf is that known 

 as Corylus Macquarrii, from Mull and Greenland. On the other 

 hand, there are remains of the Cinnamomum lanceolatum of Bovey and 

 Bournemouth, not hitherto found to the north. Two well-marked fruits 

 are present, which can be referred unhesitatingly to the genera Alnus 

 and Nyssa. The number of small-leaved dicotyledons referable pro- 

 bably to living genera, give the flora a relatively modern aspect, but 

 many of them, I am convinced, are identical with plants of Greenland 

 and Gelinden. The flora, as a whole, cannot be newer I think than 

 the Middle Eocene, and it is the first important link connecting the 

 Middle Eocene floras of England with those of the far north. 



