DICOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS. 
69 
There are a few succulent plants, and 
these only, which at the present day have 
their leaves arranged in any other manner 
than horizontally around the stalk. But in 
the fossil flora, the bulk of the examples 
have leaves disposed like the Sigillaria in 
strait lines up and down the stem. 
This peculiarity, combined with the di¬ 
minished size of the leaves, gives an air of 
stiffness to the pictures of former vegetation. 
We miss the profusion of graceful foliage 
which clothes the present forest in rich and 
beautiful attire. 
VI. In the sixth class, dicotyledonous 
flowering plants, which are beyond measure 
the most abundant now on the face of the 
globe, geology has only a brief lesson to teach. 
Whilst nine tenths of the trees, flowers, and 
fruits, which supply our wants and minister 
to our enjoyment, are derived from plants 
of this order, yet in the ancient world, the 
subject of our present investigations, we 
find but few traces of their existence. Some 
doubtful specimens from the thick monoco- 
tyledonous forests of the coal field, are 
succeeded by a few fragments in the supe- 
