GEOLOGICAL ANTIQUITY OF FLOWERS AND INSECTS. 
51 
colours — rarely tlie same in any two genera — abound in the 
Miocene beds. There are traces of them in the Eocene, where 
a nearly allied group, the Mimosas , resembling them in the 
construction of their fruits ( legumes , fig. 6) are not uncommon. 
Water-lilies covered the quiet surfaces of Swiss and English 
lakes during the Miocene period as they do in our own day. 
Cinnamon trees (now characteristic of the far East) abounded, 
Proteaceous plants (at present peculiar to the Southern Hemi- 
sphere) grew by their side, magnolias and tulip trees (well- 
known American forms) sprang up in botanical fellowship. In 
company with them were almond trees, plum trees, hawthorns, 
and many others familiar in temperate regions. 
Fig. 6. 
fossil fruit ( Podogonium Knorrii), upper miocene, cektingen. 
From a specimen in Ipswich Museum. 
The Pliocene and Glacial periods witnessed the local extinc- 
tion of many of the plants whose more generalized character 
enabled them to grow together during Miocene times, and the 
geographical distribution of others to the areas they now occupy. 
In a great measure the entomophilous flora has been otherwise 
specialized since then — many plants have become monoecious 
or dioecious , dimorphic and trimorphic, cleistogamous or other- 
wise aborted. These changes are still going on, and the ap- 
pearance of man has done not a little to add to the disturbing 
agents in the floral equilibrium of the world. We have seen 
