EXTKNT OE FOSSIL AND RECENT CYCAUEiE. 491 
M. Ad. Brongniart enumerates about seventy 
species of land plants in the Secondary forma- 
l^ions, (from the Keuper to the Chalk inclusive ;) 
<^ne half of these are Coniferse and Cycadeee, 
^iid of this half, twenty-nine are Cycadese ; the 
Remaining half are chiefly vascular Cryptoga- 
iniae, viz. Ferns, Equisetacem, and Lycopodia- 
In our actual vegetation, ConiferiE and 
Cycadese scarcely compose a three hundredth 
part.* 
The family of Cycadese comprehends only two 
living Genera ; viz. Cycas, (PI. 58.) and Zamia. 
(Pi. 59.) There are five known living Species of 
Pycas and about seventeen of Zamia. Not a 
single species of the Cycadese grows at the present 
linae in Europe ; their principal localities are 
parts of equinoctial America, the West Indies, 
^lie Cape of Good Hope, Madagascar, India, 
the Molucca Islands, Japan, China, and New 
Holland. 
P^our or five genera, and twenty-nine species of 
Pycadeie, occur in the fossil Flora of the Secon- 
dary period, but remains of this family are very 
* The fossil vegetables in the Secondary series, although they 
P’’esent many kinds of Lignite, very rarely form beds of valuable 
Coal. The imperfect coal of the Cleveland Moorlands near 
I'itby, and of Brora in Sutherland, belong to the inferior re- 
S'on of the Oolite foi-mation. So also does the bituminous coal 
Buckeberg near Miuden, in Westphalia. 
The coal of Hoer in Scania is either in the Wealden formation, 
the Green-sand cies Sciences Nat. tom. iv. p. 200). 
