RECENT PANDANE.E. 503 
sustaining Creator, in whose Will and Power, 
these harmonious systems originated, and by 
whose Universal Providence, they are, and have 
at all times been, maintained. 
Fossil Pcmdanece, 
The Pandaneae, or Screw-Pines, form a mono- 
cotyledonous family which now grows only in 
the warmer zones, and chiefly within the influ- 
ence of the sea ; they abound in the Indian 
Archipelago, and the islands of the Pacific Ocean, 
Their aspect is that of gigantic Pine apple 
plants having arborescent stems. (See PI. 63, 
Fig. 1.) 
This family of Plants seems destined, like the 
Cocoa nut Palm, to be among the first vegetable 
Colonists of new lands just emerging from the 
ocean; they are found together almost universally 
by navigators on the rising Coral islands of tro- 
pical seas. We have just been considering the 
history of the fossil stems of Cycadeae in the Isle 
of Portland, from which we learn that Plants of 
that now Extra-european family were natives of 
Britain, during the period of the Oolite formation. 
The unique and beautiful fossil fruit represented 
in our figures (Plate 63, Figs. 2, 3, 4,) affords 
probable evidence of the existence of another 
tropical family nearly allied to the Pandaneae at 
