THE CRETACEOU? FLORA. 
57 
of true Magnolia now known to botanists, seven }>elong to the 
western slope of the temperate zone of Xorth America. Lirlo - 
dendron , the Tulip-tree, has in its characters, its distribution, 
and its life, a great degree of affinity with Magnolia ; the 
American species is the only one now known in the vegetable 
world, and its habitat is strictly limited to America. Either 
considered in its whole or its separate characters, the tulip-tree 
is a constant subject of admiration and wonder. It could be 
named, not the king — it is not strong enough for that — but the 
queen of our forests, if the Magnolia was not there with it to 
dispute the prize of perfection by the still grander majesty of its 
stature, the larger size of its foliage, the elegance and perfume 
of its flowers. Our sense of admiration for these noble trees is 
heightened still by the dignity of their ancient origin.* 
The upper Cretaceous rocks, therefore, by their numerous 
forms of dicotyledons strongly foreshadow the Tertiary and 
succeeding floras. As partly bearing on this poiDt, Professor 
Lesquereux states, as regards the Western Territories, 4i In 
ascending from the lower lignitic measures, where the essential 
types of the Cretaceous flora (the Dakota group) have no re- 
presentatives, we see these Cretaceous types re-appearing, a few 
in the Upper Eocene, more in the Carbon group above, still 
more in the Upper Tertiary, following thus an increasing degree 
of predominance, culminating, it seems, at the present time, in 
the flora of the eastern slope of the Xorth American continent/'! 
A character of the Cretaceous floras is their apparent want of 
homogeneity: even when probably synchronous, they are so diver- 
sified, when compared to each other, as to appear not to belong 
to the same epoch and the same country. On this point 
MM. Saporta and Marion remark, in alluding to the localities 
which have been carefully studied, ‘-What point of analvtical 
connection can be established between Xiederschcena in Saxony, 
Moletin in Moravia, Quedlinburg and Blankenburg in the 
Hartz, Halden in Westphalia, the sands of Aix, the Senonian of 
Bausset, the Santonien of Euveau, and the Xorth American 
Cretaceous of Xebraska?”! Professor Lesquereux also shows 
that the Dakota flora, with scarcely any forms referable to 
species known from coeval formations of Europe, presets in its 
whole a remarkable and as yet unexplained case of isolation. 
Contemporary, therefore, with the extensive marine deposits 
of this period — some of a peculiar nature, great thickness, and 
uniform character, as the white chalk, indicating deep-sea con- 
ditions — there were evidently land surfaces either distributed 
as islands in the cretaceous ocean, or forming more or less low 
* Lesquereux, “ Cretaceous Flora/’ p. 121. t Ibid. p. 117. 
X " Essai sur Tetat de la vegetation a l epoque de marnes heeraiennes de 
Geliuden.” Par Count Saporta et Dr. F. A. Marion. P. 14. 
