10 



BRITISH EOCENE ELORA. 



any determinations npon the very insufficient materials. Shortly after appeared a note by 

 Hooker ^ on Carj^olithes ovulum from Lewisham, which he supposed was the sporangium 

 of a cryptogam ous plant ; but this opinion has not been adopted by recent writers, who 

 consider it the seed of a Nymphaceous plant.^ De-la- tiarpe considered that the Reading 

 leaves might be determined, and in 1856 referred them to various genera. 



In the table of fossils from these beds in the fourth volume of the ' Geological Survey 

 Memoirs,' p. 578, six of these leaves have specific names attached to them. 



In 1875 Rupert Jones and Cooper King* noticed fragments of leaf-beds enclosed in 

 strata in a newly exposed section at Reading. 



A most careful search there has resulted up to the present in nothing more than 

 indistinct leaf-remains, principally of Willow form. 



Mr. E. S. Dewick informs me that a bed of leaves was cut through fourteen years 

 since by a railway excavation at Mottingham, and has forwarded me the small fragments 

 that were preserved. Other leaf-remains have been found at Charlton. 



Very few of the plant-remains from the Woolwich and Reading Beds are now in a 

 condition to be of value for descriptive purposes ; but some, sufficiently well preserved, 

 exist in the British, Jermyn Street, and the Geological Society's Museums, and I possess 

 a series from Dulwich, which were formerly in Bowerbank's collection. In addition 

 to this, in 1878 I obtained from Newhaven a considerable number of leaves in a beautiful 

 state of preservation. This I esteem the more fortunate, since the leaf-bed is very local 

 and has almost entirely fallen into the sea, whither it will be followed at no distant date 

 by the rest of the outlier. I shall therefore be able to give an account, though very 

 imperfect, of this Lower-Eocene flora. Little diversity seems its chief feature, for the 

 greater part of the leaves found by Mantell, Prestwich, and myself, belong to a small 

 number of species. An Aralia-like leaf has been found at Lewisham. I have not seen 

 any remains of the palms mentioned as coming from the formation, or the cone figured 

 by Prestwich (1, c), and I fear they may now be disintegrated. 



III. Flora of the Oldhaven Beds. 



Whitaker ^ mentions plant-remains in these beds from several localities. The most 

 important is at Widmore Kiln, Bromley. Some leaves from that place were sub- 

 mitted to Carruthers, who remarked upon them as follows : — " The series of leaves 



' ' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' vol. xi, pi. xvi, p. .502. 



- Scbimper, ' Traite de Pal.,' vol. iii, p. 93. 



3 ' Bull. Soc. Vaudoise,' vol. v, p. 123. 



* 'Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' vol. xxxi, p. 451. 



5 ' Mem. Geol. Surv.,' vol. iv, 1872, pp. 247, 582. 



