VEGETABLE REMAINS. 63 
or lily-shaped animals allied to Star-fish, for 
peculiar consideration in a future chapter. (See 
PL 47, Figs. 5, 6, 7.) Fossil corallines also 
abound among the radiata of this period, and 
show that this family had entered thus early 
upon the important geological functions of 
adding their calcareous habitations to the solid 
materials of the strata of the globe. Their his- 
tory will also be considered in another chapter. 
Remains of Vegetables in the Transition Series, 
Some idea may be formed of the vegetation 
which prevailed during the deposition of the 
upper strata of the transition series, from the 
figures represented in our first plate (Fig. 1 to 
13). In the inferior regions of this series plants 
are few in number, and principally marine ;* but 
in its superior regions the remains of land plants 
are accumulated in prodigious quantities, and 
preserved in a state which gives them a high 
and two-fold importance ; first, as illustrating 
the history of the earliest vegetation that ap- 
peared upon our planet, and the state of climate 
* M. A. Brongniart mentions the occurrence of four species of 
fucoids in the transition strata of Sweden and Quebec ; and Dr. 
Harlan has described another species found in the Alleghany 
Mountains. 
