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XL. On the Fossil Flora of Bovey Tracey. By Br. Oswald Heee, Professor of Botany, 
and Director of the Botanical Gardens in Zurich. Communicated hy Sir C. Ltell. 
Received November 16, — Read November 21, 1861. 
In the middle of the extensive plain which is bounded by the slopes of Bovey, are the 
potteries of Mr. Divett, for which fuel was formerly supplied by the lignite excavated 
there. In order to obtain this lignite a deep cutting has been made, and a sort of small 
ravine formed, on the sides of which the stratification is exposed. The surface-covering 
consists of a light-coloured quartzose sand, which contains here and there considerable 
beds of white clay. By the plants contained in it this formation is assigned to the 
Diluvium. Immediately under it come the beds of clay and lignite described by 
Mr. Pengelly in the foregoing paper, which are all referable to one formation, as several 
kinds of plants are common to the different beds. The Sequoia Couttsice and Pecopteris 
lignitum occur in the 7th, I7th, 26th, 40th, and 63rd beds. Carpolithes Wehsteri is 
certainly found in the greatest abundance in the 54th bed, yet occurs also, though very 
rarely, in the 25th bed ; Cinnamomum Scheuchzeri and C. lanceolatum in the I7th and 
26th. The formation to which these strata belong is far older than that of the overlying 
white clay ; the plants found in the former prove them to belong unquestionably to the 
Miocene period, and accordingly we must treat of them separately. 
A. The Miocene Formation of Bovey. 
Of the fifty species of plants which have hitherto been discovered in the lignite beds 
of Bovey, twenty-one occur also on the Continent in the Miocene formation. The 
lignite of Bovey Tracey is therefore undoubtedly Miocene ; and it is worthy of special 
remark, that the species of Cinnamomum which are so characteristic of the Miocene 
and so generally distributed through it make their appearance in Bovey precisely as in 
the lignites and molasse of the rest of Europe. Equally characteristic are the Lastrwa 
Stiriaca, the fern of most universal distribution over Miocene Europe, the ornate 
striated seeds of the Gardenia Wetzleri, and the fruits of Carpolithes Wehsteri, which 
are known to us from Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. 
The following conspectus exhibits the proportions in which some of the species found 
at Bovey have been observed in other districts : — 
7 c 
MDCCCLXIl. 
