50 



BRITISH EOCENE ELORA. 



great interest that Podocarps with foHage very similar to such forms as P. andina, P. 

 cMlina, P. elont/ata, P. falcata, P. novcecaledonice, and others belonging to the Eupodo- 

 carpous or Stachycarpous divisions, were widely spread over Europe during at least the 

 Middle-Eocene period. They range in time from the Suessonian to the lowest stage of 

 the Aquitanian, and thus form a group essentially characteristic of the Eocene in Central 

 Europe. They seem soon after to have migrated, for, except in Italy, they are totally 

 unknown in the Miocene. The chief localities in which they have hitherto been 

 met with are Sotzka, Ilaring, Bilin, Ralligen, the oldest Tertiary plant -bearing formations 

 in Switzerland, the Gres du Soissonais, Gres de la Sarthe, Aix, Armissan and Peyriac in 

 France, Koumi in Euboea, Bournemouth, Alum Bay, &c. 



They are thus known to have occurred in Western Europe during the Eocene, from 

 Aix, lat. 43° to about lat. 48*^. Their presence, therefore, so much farther north in 

 Antrim and in Mull, lat. 56*30°, emphasises the importance of the results to be expected 

 from a careful examination of our British Eocene Eloras. 



Although no fruits belonging to this species have been recorded, and it would be 

 difficult to find any essential characters by which to recognise them when detached, the 

 leaves, which appear undoubtedly Coniferous, could from their size belong to no other 

 genera. The only other genera with at all similar foliage, are Cephalotaxus, Taxus, and 

 Torreya. 



The number and great range of the existing species with similar fohage, and the 

 varied temperatures which these different species sustain, render it unlikely that they 

 will afibrd safe data for estimating past temperatures, but from their somewhat limited 

 vertical range in time and changing forms, they may, with other plants, become valuable 

 data in ascertaining the relative ages of Tertiary plant-beds in Europe. 



PoDOCARPUs ELEGANs, De-la-Harpc (sp.). Plate VIII, figs. 1 — 16. 



CuPRESsiTES ELEGANS, Be-la-IIarpe. Mem. Geo). Survey, Isle of Wight, p. 1 1 1, pi. ^ 



figs. 1—3, 18G2. 



Glyptostroeus europ/eus, Seutjoia Langsdorfii, S. CouTTsiiE, Ettingshausen. 



Fossil Flora of Alum Bay, Proceed. Royal Society, 

 vol. XXX, p. 231, 1880. 



Lower Bagshot, Alum Bay. 



The leaflets are opposite, narrow, linear, spreading, and in two rows; or three-sided, 

 awl-shaped, and acute, and in five rows ; their size varying in the first form from very 

 small to almost twelve millimetres in length, and two millimetres in breadth. They are 

 coriaceous, finely parallel-veined, with inconspicuous midrib, and a surface irregularly 

 dotted with pits just visible without a lens ; and they either taper to a point or are 



