MIOCENE STRATA OF SWITZERLAND. 
221 
Fig. 140. 
Acer trilobatum, 
a. Abnormal variety of leaf; Heer, PI. 110, Fig. 16. &. Flower and bracts, normal 
form; Heer, PI. Ill, Fig. 21. c. Half a seed-vessel; Heer, PI. Ill, Fig. 5. 
Among the conspicuous genera which abounded in the 
Miocene period in Europe is the plane-tree, Platanus^ the 
fossil species being considered by 
Heer to come nearer to the American 
P, occidentalis than to P, orientalis of 
Greece and Asia Minor. In some of 
the fossil specimens the male flowers 
are preserved. Among other points 
of resemblance with the living plane- 
tree^, as we see them in the parks 
and squares of London, fossil frag¬ 
ments of the trunk are met with, hav¬ 
ing pieces of their bark peeling off. 
The vine of (Eningen, Vitis teuton- 
ica. Ad. Brong.,is of a North Ameri- Pi^anus^eroide^.Go^^.^ Heer, 
’ ® 1 T PL 88, Figs. 5-8. Size f diam. 
can type. Both the leaves and seeds upper Miocene, (Eningen. 
have been found at (Eningen, and Leaf. 5. The core of a bundle 
bunches of compressed grapes of the pedcarp^^naturaisize^ 
same species have been met with in ' ’ 
the brown coal of Wetteravia in Germany. No less than 
eight species of smilax, a monocotyledonous genus, occur at 
(Eningen and in other Upper Miocene localities, the flowers 
of some of them, as well as the leaves, being preserved; as in 
the case of the very common fossil, S. sagittifera^ Fig. 142, a. 
Leaves of plants supposed to belong to the order Proteaceae 
have been obtained partly from (Eningen and partly from the 
lacustrine formation of the same age at Lode in the Jura. 
They have been referred to the genera Banksia^ Gremllea^ 
Hakea^ and Persoonia. Of Hakea there is the impression of 
a supposed seed-vessel, with its characteristic thick stalk and 
seeds, but as the fruit is without structure, and has not yet 
