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BRITISH EOCENE ELORA. 



supply by inference that of which he lacks direct proof. That many have abused this 

 privilege, and come to heedless and unjustifiable determinations of fossil plants, is but too 

 well known ; but when their determination can be based on consistent reasoning they should 

 not be set aside too summarily, but accepted with due regard for what they may be worth. 



Foliage of this character is not distinctive of any particular genus, or even tribe of 

 Coniferse, but is met with in Sequoia, Cryptomeria, Athrotaxis, Araucaria, and Bacrydium, 

 as well as in many extinct genera. In the present instance, it appears to have fallen 

 into river-water that flowed sluggishly, for it abounded in molluscous, and sometimes in 

 insect life, while seeds, twigs, and other objects with differing powers of flotation were 

 embedded together in an oozy sediment. If cones had been adhering to tbe branches 

 when they fell, they must, under such conditions, have been embedded together. 

 With regard to Cryptomeria, Mr. Cossart writes, in reply to my inquiry, that 

 the mature cones are most difficult to detach, and that they remain united to the 

 branchlets that have been shed until these become half rotten. We have also seen 

 them attached in the fossil state (see Plate XXI). I am not aware whether the 

 cones of the Mammoth Tree are shed separately from the foliage, but they have usually 

 been found associated together in the fossil state. Sequoia cones, moreover, could not 

 have escaped a collector's notice had they been present in numbers at all proportioned 

 to the foliage. We have seen cones and foliage associated in two species of fossil 

 Athrotaxis, and their complete absence in this case almost compels us therefore to 

 exclude all these Taxodiese from our comparisons. It cannot be assimilated to any 

 existing species of Juniper or Dacrydium, and in no case in fact does the foliage of any 

 berry-producing Conifer resemble it at all closely. We must therefore look for it 

 among those Coniferae the axes of whose cones remain permanently fixed on the trees, 

 unless accidentally removed, while their deciduous scales and seeds are scattered afar 

 by the winds. 



Dr. Marion, of Marseilles, has met with the fac-simile of our fossil in great abundance 

 in the Oligocene of the Tertiary basin of Alais, Card, between the horizon of Paloplo- 

 therium minus and the Sandstones with Anthracotherium, or as nearly as possible on the 

 same horizon as the Bembridge Marls at Gurnet Bay. The branches of this Conifer are 

 scattered in profusion over the flags of a certain bed at Ceylas, almost to the exclusion of 

 other plant impressions. They are often of large size, and seem to have been shed 

 and not broken from the tree. Dr. Marion describes, in addition to the ordinary falcate 

 leaves, branches clothed M'ith longer and straighter needles scarcely curved at their 

 extremities, the two varieties being always associated together.^ Scattered over some of 



^ " A cote du type ordinaire, on observe des branches dont les appendices prennent, en s'allongeant, la 

 forme en aiguille droite ou a peine recourbee a I'extremite. Ces deux sortes de rameaux sont tonjours 

 associees ; je ne pense pas qu'elles indiquent deux especes distinctes," 1. c, p. 2. A more detailed 

 description of Doliostrobus by the same author is in the press. I met with a fragment some years since 

 in the Bembridge Marls bearing somewhat similar needles to those described, and referred to it at p. 59, 

 pi. xiii, fig. 7. 



