ARTICLE IV. 
THE OLDEST SILURIAN FLORA. 
By G. F. Matthews, D. Sc., F. R. S. C. 
(Read 7th November, 1910.) 
Much interest centres in the early Palaeozoic floras, with 
their strange forms of vegetation, so different from modern 
plants, yet (if evolutional theories are to be accepted) these old 
plants are the channel through which modern species are 
descended. If the Neo-Palaeozoic plants are worthy of special 
study, how much more interest attaches to the investigation of 
the Eopalaeozoic forms, those of the three earlier ages, Silurian, 
Ordovician and Cambrian. 
Two floras of the first of these Ages, the remains of which 
have been found near St. John, N. B., have been the subject of 
investigation by several leading palaeo-phytologists, and have 
been found to be mostly of deltaic habit, like the majority of 
those of the Coal measures. In following the formation that 
carries these plant remains of St. John westward along the 
shore of the Bay of Fundy, one can see how the emerged beds 
of the delta with their plant remains gradually pass into sub- 
merged deposits in which such plants are rarely found, but in 
which, eventually, remains of marine animals appear. This 
terrain is shown, by the occurrence of these marine remains, to 
be of Silurian age. 
But a further step backward in the history of the Silurian 
Flora is taken when we discover that there are still earlier plant 
remains in this district in its Silurian rocks than those of the 
deltaic flora above mentioned, remains which are quite different 
both in genera and species, from those of this flora. 
Beds with these older plants were discovered a year ago in 
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