30 



BRITISH EOCENE ELORA. 



three existing species, T. distichum, or the deciduous Cypress, T. mexicanum, which flou- 

 rishes on the high plateau of Mexico at from 5750 to 7670 feet above the sea, forming 

 trees 120 feet in height and 25 to 40 feet in girth,^ and the smaller GJyptoHtrobus of Japan. 



The GJyptostrobus section of Taxodium is said to occur in the Tertiaries of Atane- 

 kerdluk in Greenland, and of the Mackenzie River, Spitzbergen, and Alaska. Of two 

 species described, one has only imbricated and the other imbricated and distichous 

 foliage, but no trace of the cones of Glyjitostrobus has yet been obtained with either. 

 There is, indeed, no direct evidence that any of the fohage so described from the Arctic 

 Tertiaries does not belong to the Sequoias, whose fruits are so constantly associated with 

 it. The nearly invariably polymorphic growth of the ancient Sequoias has not been 

 sufficiently recognised, and hence every polymorphic twig has been placed in the genus 

 Glyptostrohus. 



The inflorescence ('El. Eoss. Arctica,' vol. iv, pi. 11, fig. 8), also determined as that of 

 Glyptostrohus, is indistinguishable from that of Sequoia. The species had a very extensive 

 range in Europe, principally from the Upper Eocene period to the close of the Tertiaries ; 

 for it is recorded from Greece, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Erance, Germany, and as far 

 north as the Baltic provinces. Foliage alone would be scarcely satisfactory evidence of 

 its range, but cones accompany it at Koumi, in Euboea, Hungary, Oeningen, Manosque, 

 and the Prussian shores of the Baltic. 



It finally disappears from Europe with the Pliocene of the Val d'Arno. 



Taxodium europium, Brongnt. Plate III, figs. 1 — 9; and Plate IV, figs. 1 — 8. 



Taxodium europium, Brongnt. Ann. des Sciences Nat., 1st series, vol. xx.\', p. 175, 



1833. 



— CENINGENSE, Al. Brann. In Leonh. and Bronn., Jahrbuch, 1845. 

 Ctjpressites racemostjs, Gospp. Monogr. Conif., p. 184, pi. 19, 1850. 

 Taxodites euroPjEUS, Goepp. Ibid., p. 192, pi. 22, fig. 1, 1850. 

 Glyptostrobus europ^us, Heer. Fl. Tert. Helv., vol. i, p. 51, pis. 19 and 20, fig. 1, 



1859. 



Middle Bagshot, Bournemouth. 



The foliage is usually imbricated, sometimes closely adpressed and decurrent, the 

 leaflets of various shapes, alternate, some scale-like, small, ovate, acute or obtuse-pointed, 

 others near the base of the shoots frequently very short and scale-like, somewhat trian- 

 gular and compressed, increasing towards the points of the shoots to rather long, awl- 

 shaped, and recurved, and even expanding into flat linear leaflets, tapering to a sharp 

 point. The branchlets appear to have been alternate, somewhat crowded, and repeatedly 

 forking, and the shoots frequently seem to terminate in a male flower or bud. 



^ Humboldt, ' Cosmos,' p. 326. 



