
22 | FLOWERING PLANTS 
Tertiary Period, and the probable climatic conditions, with 
representative vegetation. This table is only intended to be 
suggestive. As fossil botany is more thoroughly and systemati- 
cally studied it is probable that new light will be thrown on 
_ this subject. The oldest rocks are given at the bottom of the 
table, and recent rocks-—that is, those later than the Tertiary 
Period—are omitted: they nS to what is called the Post- 
Tertiary Age. 
= 
TABLE OF TERTIARY PERIOD. 
Fock. Climatic Conditions. . . Vegetation. 
: | Cold, marked by milder Temperate plants 
Pleistocene intervals 
(latest) | Glacial EHipoch Arctic plants migrate 
south ; 
Pliocene Temperate, gradually Arctic plants appear 
getting colder towards end of 
period 
Miocene Unrepresented No fossil plants of this 
period to be found in 
Britain 
Oligocene - Colder than Eocene Temperate plants 
Eocene Much warmer than at Oldest known flowering 
(oldest) the present time plants 
Changesin he effect of changes in the geographical dis- 
Geographical tribution of land and water on the existing 
Distribution 
ofLand distribution of plants is well seen in the case of 
and Water. oceanic and continental islands. Those islands 
which are close to, and at one time probably formed part of, 
the adjoining continent will have much the same flora as that 
of the continent to which they belong geologically. In oceanic 
islands this would not be the case; their flora would be very 
different, and would have many species peculiar to themselves. 
Such forms are said to be endemic. 
Great Britain and Ireland are continental islands ; the flora 
is therefore, on the whole, continental, derived from the con- 
tinent of Europe, and for that reason has few, if any, endemic 
forms. But, as our islands have a very changeable climate, 
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