. The testimony of the rocks; . found not without its bearing on the older vegetationsalso. Throughout almost all the families of this Ooliticflora, there seems to have run a curious bond of relation-ship, which, like those ties which bound together some ofthe old clans of our country, united them, high and low,into one great sept, and conferred upon them a certainwonderful unity of character and appearance. Let us as-sume the ferns as our central group. Though less abun-dant than in the earlier creation of the Carboniferous FOSSIL FLORAS OF SCOTLAND 403 system, they seem to have occupied, jud
. The testimony of the rocks; . found not without its bearing on the older vegetationsalso. Throughout almost all the families of this Ooliticflora, there seems to have run a curious bond of relation-ship, which, like those ties which bound together some ofthe old clans of our country, united them, high and low,into one great sept, and conferred upon them a certainwonderful unity of character and appearance. Let us as-sume the ferns as our central group. Though less abun-dant than in the earlier creation of the Carboniferous FOSSIL FLORAS OF SCOTLAND 403 system, they seem to have occupied, judging from theirremains, very considerable space in the Oolitic vegetation;and with the ferns there were associated in great abun-dance the two prevailing families of the Pterides,—Equi-seta and Lycopodia,—plants which, in most of our moderntreatises on the ferns proper, take their place as the fernallies. (See Fig. 148.) Let us place these along two of thesides of a pentagon, — the Lycopodia on the right side of Fig. Ferns. the ferns, the Eqniseta on the left; further, let ns occupythe two remaining sides of the figure by the Coniferse andthe CycadacesB, — placing the Coniferse on the side nextthe Lycopodia, and the Cycadaceae, as the last added key-stone of the erection, between these and the now, let us consider how very curious the Unks arewhich give a wonderful unity to the whole. We still findgreat difficulty in distinguishing between the foliage ofsome of even the existing club mosses and the conifers;and the ancient Lepidodendra are very generally recog-nized as of a type intermediate between the two. SimilarIntel-mediate types, exemplified by extinct families, unitedthe conifers and the ferns. The analogy of Kirchneriawith the ThinnfekUa^ says Dr. Braim, is very remarkable,42 494 ON THE LESS KNOWN notwithstanding that the former is a fern, and that the is ranked among conifers. The points of resemblanceborne by the conifers to the huge
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