34 



BRITISH EOCENE ELORA. 



the mountains ; here they displace all other trees, and are described as rearing to the sky 

 their massy crowns ; whilst seen from a distance the forest presents the appearance of 

 waves of vegetation, gracefully following the complicated topography of the ridges and 

 river-basins which it clothes."^ 



The oldest Sequoias known are those described by Carruthers from the Blackdown 

 beds and the Folkestone Gault. Schimper speculates upon their derivation from some 

 much older Araucarian form, and the character of the foliage associated with them in 

 Cretaceous rocks certainly seems to point in tliat direction. Saporta regards the Chalk 

 period as the Golden Age of Sequoia. The best Cretaceous specimens seem to have been 

 obtained in the far north, and are illustrated in the ' Flora fossilis arctica.' Saporta 

 speaks of Pattorfik as a Sequoia wood carpeted with Ferns, and Ekkorfat as a forest 

 composed of Cycads, Sequoias, and Firs. It is quite apparent that in these Arctic forms 

 the distichous and imbricated types of foliage were luiited in the same species ; a character 

 not only preserved in many of the Eocene species, but in the nearly alhed Taxodiura, 

 and even to some extent in the surviving Sequoias. Heer, through overlooking this 



(Konieschichten, 'Flora foss. arctica,' vol. iii, pi. xxi, FiG. 17. — iS. Reichenhachii. (Ibid., 



fig. 7.) pl. XX, fig. 8.) 



character, has been led to make a number of species which cannot be sustained, the 

 pieces so separated being in some cases evidently from the same branch. The truth of 

 this statement is obvious even from the few figures here reproduced. Similar distinc- 

 tions are made in the forms from the Ataneschichten, named S. fastigiata, 8. suhulata, 

 &c. Another very interesting characteristic, also unmentioned by Heer, is that the 

 distichous arrangement was produced in the Cretaceous species, if the drawings can be 

 1 Sir J. Hooker, Lecture to Royal Institution, April 12th, 18/8. 



