286 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Ocr., 1898. 
to appear—LEquisetacer, represented by the common mare’s-tail of the 
British marshes, but now nearly vanished from the face of the earth, and 
the Lycopods or club mosses, of which there are several in Queensland, 
but very degenerate in size when compared with their gigantic progenitors, 
Then came the Conifers, and about the same time the Ferns; for at 
this time it was said, “Let the dry land appear.” With the club mosses 
came the earliest fishes—strange, armour-protected creatures—and with the 
Conifers (our Araucarias are of that ilk) came insects. ‘“ Let the earth bring 
forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his 
kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth.” You will note that each succes- 
sive step is in the direction of a higher and more complex organisation. 
This brings us up to the time of the Coal Measures, when the whole surface 
of the earth, even to the poles, was like one gigantic hothouse reeking with 
moisture, steaming with heat, saturated with carbonic acid gas. These plants 
grew as they never grew before, nor since. Gigantic club-mosses, with whose 
scientific names you need not be troubled, choked every part of the dark 
Steaming earth. Weare burning these very club-mosses in our engines and 
factories to-day. Every time you throw a lump of coal on the fire you are 
handling a piece of fern, or club-moss, or mare’s-tail, or Conifer, which grew in 
the day when “the moving creature that hath life,” the gigantic frog-like 
Batrachians first crashed through the forests of ferns, mosses, and Cycads. 
For this is the point at which our friends the Cyeads first came in. A little 
later the ferns, mare’s-tails, and club-mosses began to wane in numbers. The 
earth was getting cooler. But the Cycads and Conifers multiplied, and ver 
soon had divided between them the sovereignty of nearly the whole vegetable 
kingdom. About this time, about half-way up in the coal formations, we 
meet a new and higher development, the Monocotyledon—the class to which 
grasses, bamboos, and lilies belong; and a little later, keeping pace with the 
progress in the world of plants, came crocodile-like reptiles, the marsupials, 
forefathers of our kangaroos, and birds, “every winged fowl after his kind.” 
Then there was a long pause. ‘The earlier forms of plant life had 
become of comparatively small account, the ferns had become fewer in number 
and less in stature, the gigantic mare’s-tails had passed away, the club mosses 
had dwindled to their present dimensions ; the Cyeads were passing away—they 
no longer formed as formerly the bulk of the forests even in what is now Great 
Britain ; the Conifers had taken their place in the scheme of vegetable life and 
now formed the bulk of the plant world; but the higher forms, the grass-like 
plants, were quickly increasing and soon took the lead. A whole cycle passed 
away, and then we first meet with faint indications of still higher forms, the 
Dicotyledons, closely allied to the trees which now form the bulk of our 
vegetation. A little time after these appeared came mammals, “the beast of 
the earth and cattle.” One type, you see, kept pace with the others, and the 
animal and vegetable worlds ran neck-and-neck in the race for perfection. 
The Conifers slowly decreased, the grasses and lilies very slowly became fewer 
and smaller, though they still hold their own. The Dicotyledons increased; and 
then came Man, to “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl 
of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth.” 
This is the position now. ‘The earlier types—the Rhizocarps—have 
served their purpose, and are of small account; the middle types are almost 
gone, the lovely ferns holding out the best; the Conifers are in an inferior 
position ; and the two later types—the endogens and exogens—hold divided 
empire, the latter (being the later form) preponderating. Will there be other 
types, and what will they be like ? 
It is not easy to tell the story of the Creation of the vegetable world in a 
few hundred words. It has never been better told than on the first page of 
the Book quoted. ‘To those who object that this has little to do with the 
economic aspects of horticulture, let it be answered that a comprehensive grasp 
of the vegetable creation has much indecd to do with that feeling which trans- 
lates work into worship and patient striving into pleasure, and that this feeling 
means success in anything a man puts his hand to. 
