134 
James Small. 
interest to the records of Eupaturium. E. cannabinnm, which 
occurs all over the Eur-Asiatic region at the present time, seems 
to have been common in England in Pleistocene times, another 
small piece of evidence supporting the Law of Age and Area. The 
obscure variety of E. japonicum is interesting, but, as the identity 
is not fully verified, no special conclusion can be drawn, since it is 
quite possible that the fossil fruit represents an old derivative of 
E. cannabinum, rather than the former extension of the living, 
local variety of E. japonicum. The Middle Pliocene development 
of Eupatorinm, when considered in relation to the ancestry of the 
tribe, can, however, be taken as evidence in favour of the 
relatively early origin of the Astereae. 
The Heliantheae are represented by Bidens from the Upper 
Pliocene to the Roman Period. The wide extension of this genus 
at such a date, combined with the Lower Eocene Helianthoid 
Carpolithus hyoseritiformis, indicates an early origin of the 
Heliantheae as suggested in Chap. X, D. The available evidence 
concerning the development of the Compositae in America is, 
however, so meagre that it does not furnish any information about 
the relative age in America of the various tribes. This field for 
research is still very open and investigations on the early Tertiary 
Compositae of America would prove very interesting. 
From the above brief account of fossil Compositae it will be 
seen that so far as our present knowledge extends the details are 
quite in accordance with the phyletic suggestions given in previous 
chapters; they add little it is true, but slight confirmation is all that 
can be expected from such an incomplete record. 
According to Chamberlin and Salisbury (6) the Angiosperms 
arose in late Jurassic or early Comanchean times in the eastern 
part of North America. This theory is regarded by Stopes (34) 
as possibly true but unproven (35). The evidence of the present 
geographical distribution of most of the Sympetalae and of the higher 
Archichlamydeae is in favour of a more southern place of origin— 
the northern part of South America. Fossil evidence is scanty, but 
other data point quite clearly to the region of the Amazons and 
northern Andes as the geographical source of the Angiosperms in 
general and of the Compositae in particular. 
Late Cretaceous or early Eocene times are indicated as the 
time of origin of the Compositae. This is in agreement with the 
suggested early Tertiary origin deduced by Guppy (IX, 21, p. 245) 
from the absence of endemic genera of Compositae from the Fiji 
Islands and their presence in the Hawaiian Islands. That 
phenomenon, however, can be explained equally well by the 
