EOCENE FERNS. 
45 
America, where it is common ; and G. dichotoma, according to Hooker, is of " tropical and 
subtropical regions, almost universal, in the New and in the Old Worlds, Pacific Islands, 
and as far north as Japan." A note by S. Hayes, in the British Museum Herbarium, 
informs us that the former grows in extensive patches along the line of the Panama 
Railway. 
The genus Gleichenia appears to have reached its maximum development in Europe 
in Pre-eocene or so-called Cretaceous times, and then to have died out or migrated, since 
no species have been met with in the Miocene. Saporta has found similar fragments in 
the gypsum of Aix, in Provence. Pragments are also met with at Aix-la-Chapelle, which 
closely resemble it, but are stated by De Bey, after comparing specimens, to be all 
more or less distinct. 
The distribution of this Pern in England is almost limited to a thin band, only a few 
inches thick, in the leaf-patch under the Highclifif Mansions at Bournemouth. In this 
layer it was abundant, and numerous specimens were obtained by residents, in some of 
whose collections they are still preserved. It was only after an interval of many years that 
some small fragments were found last autumn, the result of extended digging in a 
neighbouring patch. Its restricted distribution here should be taken into account in 
generalising on the absence of Gleichenia in the Miocene of Europe. 
The position in which the remains are found, overlying a marly bed, penetrated every- 
where by its rootlets, seems to imply that it flourished in a considerable patch in a wet 
clayey hollow. 
Mr. Wanklyn kindly lent the specimens figs. 1, 3, 4, 6, PI. VI; Mr. Pender 
figs. 2 and 5 ; and the Woodwardian Museum figs. 3, 3, 4, PI. X. 
Anemia subcretacea {Saporta). Plates VIII and IX. 
AsPLENiUM SUBCKETACEUM, Saporttt. Flor. Foss. Sezanne, Mem. Soc. Geol. France, 
3e ser., vol. viii, p. 315, pi. xxiii, fig. 4. 1868. 
Gymnogramma Haydenii, Lesquereux. U. S. Annual Report, 18/1, p. 295 and 
Tertiary Flora, U. S. G-eol. Survey of the 
Territories, vol. vii, p. 59, pi. v, figs. 1 — 3. 
1878. 
A. stipite dicliotoma, fronde bi-tripinnata, pinnis ovato-ohlongis, pinnuUs adtiato- 
sessilibics, subdecurre7itibus lanceolatis vel lanceolato-Unearibus, acuminatis, grosse dentatis 
vel inciso-lobatis, lobis acutis i?itegerrimis vel crenulatis ; loborum nervatione more 
Gydopteridis simplicis aqualis, nervis tenuissimis valde congestis, mediano vix prominente. 
Middle Bagshot, Bournemouth. 
The materials for the determination and description of this Pern are abundant and 
