16 



BRITISH EOCENE FLORA. 



&c., CaiTuthers determines the plant-remains mentioned by the original authors as 

 Pinites Bixoni, Bowerb., Pinites BowerhanJci, Carr., fragment of a Coniferous twig, 

 Cedroxylon W or thing ense, Carr., Palmacites Dixoni, Carr., Palmacites constrictus, Carr, 

 Palmacites oUongus, Carr., Carpolites Dixoni, Carr,, and Dicotyledonous Wood. 



§ 1. The Lower-Bagshot Flora. — Next to that from Sheppey this is the most 

 widely known of the English Eocene Floras. It has attracted considerable attention, 

 partly perhaps on account of the beds being conspicuously exposed and easily accessible 

 at Alum Bay. In the pipe-clay bed which occurs there we have an exceedingly well- 

 preserved and beautiful, as well as extensive, flora. The leaves, almost always detached, 

 are flat and smooth, and appear to have belonged principally to deciduous forest-trees. 

 The species are not abundant, compared with the number of specimens. The distinctive 

 character of the flora is due to the size and variety of the leaves ascribed to the genus 

 Ficus and to the Leguminosffi, in a scarcely less degree to a deeply cleft palmate Aralia, 

 a trilobed leaf resembling Liquidambar, a deeply serrate Banksia, and other leaves referred 

 to Comptonia, Dryandra, and Myrica. Few, if any, of these have been found in the 

 Middle Bagshot division at Bournemouth. The inference that the Studland beds were 

 of the same geological age as those of Alum Bay has been confirmed, many of the 

 characteristic Alum Bay leaves having lately been found there, including the Aralia and 

 Liquidambar. The Studland flora, however, has a somewhat different character; for 

 although aU the dicotyledons are identical, they are in the minority, and their leaves 

 are bent and mingled with masses of broken fronds of large Fan-palms and Ferns ; 

 whilst many Insect wing-cases and Shells have been met with implying, as I believe, 

 greater proximity to land. Mitchell informs me that leaves in good preservation 

 were formerly found in the clay-pits at Branksea Island, of this age, but no record of 

 their forms is preserved. Splendid specimens used to be obtained abundantly from 

 the Corfe pits, but time and dust have so obliterated the smaller leaves tliat have been 

 preserved as to render them valueless for purposes of identification. Fragments of 

 Fan-palms in various Museums, and some large-lobed leaves in the Museum at Oxford, 

 are almost the only well-marked specimens still remaining. Repeated search in these 

 pits of late years has only brought to light a few leaves of simple form, without distinct 

 venation. No record of the forms of the leaves discovered in pipe-clay at Newbury exists 

 as far as I know.^ The Lower-Bagshot flora appears to possess such very distinctive 

 characters that we may be enabled safely to compare it with European fossil floras, and 

 so to fix their horizon. 



§ 2. The Middle-Bagshot Flora. — This appears to be far more extensive and 

 more varied than that of the Lower Bagshot beds, although less known, collecting 

 having been hitherto confined to the cliffs close to Bournemouth. Leaves, flowers, and 



^ 'Memoirs of the Geol. Survey,' vol. iv, p. 312. 



