GYMNOSPERMyE. 



59 



this that the sea air has a great effect on it."^ These bush forests are thus described 

 by Moore : — " The bush is characterised by denseness of growth, the altitude, and 

 beautiful dark green foliage of the trees, the presence of lofty climbing plants, which 

 extend their slender pliant branches considerable distances, and by this means often 

 embracing, as it were, into one common bond, many of the loftiest and largest trees. 



, . . Another characteristic of forests of this description is a thick undergrowth of 

 numerous kinds of ferns and other plants. Palms and tree ferns also usually abound, 

 the former reaching a height, in some instances, of at least 130 feet. . . . On the 

 stems and branches of the trees numerous kinds of epiphytal ferns and orchids grow, 

 which, with the other plants referred to, contribute materially to give such forests a very 

 tropical appearance."^ 



It is clear from the association together of the debris of trailing Smilacese and Aroids, 

 and from the remains of large Pan Palms and Perns, that our Eocene bush growth must 

 have been very similar to that described by Moore. The physical aspects of the former 

 stations of Araucaria on the alluvial banks of the great Bournemouth River, and its 

 probable extension along the east coast of the Submerged Continent, must have approxi- 

 mated to those it now occupies on the Brisbane River and the shores of Moreton Bay on 

 the East Coast of Australia. Nothing can be more impressive, indeed, than the remark- 

 able agreement in habit between the Araucaria and associated plants that have passed away, 

 and those that survive so far away. The long-embedded plants of our Eocene coasts 

 seem to have risen up and to live again in a distant country, and through what exists there 

 we are able to picture the long sandy coasts, beaten by an ocean surf and fringed with 

 dark-foliaged and gigantic Araucarias, Gum-trees, luxuriant Palms and Perns, whose 

 remains have helped to form the cliffs and moors of pine-clad Bournemouth. If we 

 contrast this with the comparative absence of any similar associated vegetation in the 

 Mammoth Grove, we see how opposed would have been the contemplated reference of 

 these branches to Sequoia under any known natural grouping. 



Dixon, in the ' Geology of Sussex,' pi. ix, fig. 1, engraved a fragment of a Coniferous 

 branch under the name of Lycopodites squaniatus, Broug., from Bracklesham, which 

 might possibly have belonged to this species, and there is a small fragment from Barton 

 in the British Museum. 



A somewhat similar Conifer occurs in the Bembridge Marls of Hempstead Cliff, Isle 

 of Wight. The needles are longer, straighter, and less symmetrical, and the species 

 is evidently distinct from Araucaria Goepperti. Whether, however, it is the Icelandic 

 Sequoia Slernhergi, or a Cryptomeria or a Bacrydium like that from Borneo, which very 

 closely resembles it, there is at present absolutely no evidence to indicate. 



1 ' Industrial Progress of New South Wales,' 1870, pt. ii, p. 643. 



2 Id., p. 633. 



