250 
PLANT MARCHES. 
Nov., 1890. 
The cryptogamic flora of Carboniferous times finds many 
surviving relations in the Ferns, Lycopodiums, and Horsetails 
of our day, and if the exact species are not now present, yet 
there is sufficient likeness to assure us of the near relation¬ 
ship. These hardy warriors, which have enjoyed such a 
prolonged existence, are not insignificant historians of the 
past. 
We observe the survivors now living possess a more or less 
vigorous life amid certain surroundings and influences suited 
to their existence. With the same favourable conditions 
intensified, it is not difficult to imagine the circumstances of 
life enjoyed by their ancient and more noble ancestors— 
warmth, shade, moisture, and more liberal supply of carbonic 
acid gas—and we may conjure to our imagination a picture of 
rich verdure and luxuriant growth, not unlike a possible 
arrangement of tree ferns, with rank, marshy undergrowth and 
mossy environment, in our day. Again, consider what a 
venerable and varied history belongs to the great tribe of 
plants known as the Needle Trees, embracing the whole family 
of pines, which has held an uninterrupted course of exist¬ 
ence through countless ages, through every kind of climatic 
change, and in all parts of the world. Its representatives 
outstrip all competitors in endurance, they collect nutritive 
carbon from the highest altitudes, they are invigorated by the 
bracing winds of high latitudes, they thrive in the sunny 
south, and exist amid the arid sand dunes of the desert. They 
climb the mountain sides and cover valleys with verdure 
throughout the whole world. 
Splendid as is their position to-day, their record of power 
and endurance is still better. They have the charm of pos¬ 
sessing a long, long history, they ennoble themselves by 
counting among their members the monarch of all trees, the 
giant Sequoias (Wellingtonias) of California, and their first 
ancestors must be sought for in Carboniferous, or perhaps 
even in Devonian times. 
Another interesting survival from the Mesozoic Age— 
that is, in the progressive flora immediately following 
the Cryptogamic plants of Carboniferous times—is the 
Gingko tree of China (Salisburia). In Mesozoic times separ¬ 
ate species of these elegant fan-leaved trees were plentiful, 
but in our time they have been reduced to the single repre¬ 
sentative species mentioned. This tree has now found its 
last retreat in Eastern Asia, though it readily grows and 
thrives throughout temperate Europe and in America as far 
north as Montreal. In the Mesozoic period it occupied, with 
many diversified species, all the regions named and even 
Siberia and Greenland. 
