92 



BRITISH EOCENE FLORA. 



the apex of the 



Fig. 35.- 

 Shrubsolei. 

 Clay; Isle of 



-Sequoia 

 London 

 Sbeppey. 



cone, and very slightly diminishing towards its base : they are 

 sunken in the middle, and have been considerably abraded. The cone 

 was embedded before the scales had gaped, and still adheres to a stout 

 footstalk 7 millimetres across. 



These characters agree well with Sequoia, and in all probability the 

 fossil belonged to a species of the S. gigantea type (Eig. 12, p. 3;3). The 

 fact that the scales are tightly closed, are preserved in pyrites instead 

 of lignite, that they had undergone compression, and that the petiole 

 had a relative stoutness, all favour the assumption that the cone had not 

 reached maturity when detached from the tree. There is no other 

 existing genus to which it could possibly be referred except Finns. 



It reached me among a parcel of fruits sent from Sheerness by Mr. 

 W. H. Shrubsole, E.G.S., and is, so far as I know, a unique specimen. 



TaxodiUxM EUROPiEUM,^ Brouf/t. Plate XXIV. 

 Reading Beds ; Reading. 



The species was fully described at page 30 of this memoir. The beautiful specimen 

 figured (Plate XXIV) and another from below the Mottled Clay at Reading, were 

 obtained this summer, and show that a species, once claimed to be typical of the Miocene, 

 flourished in our area long before ever the Palms and other tropical plants of the 

 London Clay of Sheppey, and of the Lower Bagshot of Alum Bay, had become 

 introduced. The stratigraphical evidence as to their age is fortunately so good, the 

 London Clay actually capping the Mottled Clay in another part of the quarry, that it is 

 beyond cavil. The whole of the assemblage of plants, which are of remarkably temperate 

 aspect, must, when they become better known, force every one to admit that precon- 

 ceived ideas as to what are Eocene and what Miocene plants must be banished, and the 

 entire evidence sifted afresh. 



The imbricated and distichous foliage are present on the same branches in both the 

 figured and an unfigured specimen. Fragments of Pine-needles, which afford no suffi- 

 cient material for specific description, accompany it, together with a flower" or fruit and 

 dicotyledonous leaves. The matrix is a clay of a pale French-grey colour, very friable, 

 but with perfectly distinct impressions of the vegetable remains, and separated from the 

 overlying Mottled Clay by a few feet of clean white sand. The discovery carries back 



1 See ante, p. 30. 



" Saporta is inclined to believe that this may be a detached cone of a Callitris or Widdringtonia, 

 such as are met witli commonly in the gypsum of Aix. He also remarks upon the resemblance of the 

 Glyptostrobus to an extinct Eocene Sequoia described by himself. 



