SIX 
PLANT LIFE IN THE GREAT ICE AGE 
E ARLY Tertiary plants were similar to those of the 
Upper Cretaceous. But later a gradual cooling 
of the temperature set in. Throughout the Middle and 
especially the late Tertiary period, the plant life assumed 
an aspect reminding us of that of northern California 
and Oregon today. 
During the early Tertiary there flourished a sub-tropical 
flora on the west coast of Greenland. It contained ferns 
and cypresses, sycamores, magnolias, sweet-gums, maiden¬ 
hair trees, and many other sub-tropical plants. It resem¬ 
bled the vegetation which grows now in the South of 
the United States and in southern California. Other 
Eocene floras are known from the Gulf coast, Mexico, 
and southern Colorado. They contain palms, figs, laur¬ 
els, and cinnamon, bread-fruit trees, and various cypresses 
and ferns. It was a vegetation indicating a warm climate 
and rather uniform floras over the earth. Similar floras 
are also known in many European countries. 
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