. The geological history of plants. Paleobotany; 1888. 180 THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. and which from their appearance are called "fossil birds' nests " by the quarrymen. Some, however, must have attained a considerable height so as to resemble palms. The cycads, with their simple, thick trunks, usually marked with rhombic scars, and bearing broad spreading crovms of large, elegantly formed pinnate leaves, must have formed a prominent part of the vegetation of the northern hemisphere during the whole of the Mesozoio period. A botanist, had there been such a person at the time,
. The geological history of plants. Paleobotany; 1888. 180 THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. and which from their appearance are called "fossil birds' nests " by the quarrymen. Some, however, must have attained a considerable height so as to resemble palms. The cycads, with their simple, thick trunks, usually marked with rhombic scars, and bearing broad spreading crovms of large, elegantly formed pinnate leaves, must have formed a prominent part of the vegetation of the northern hemisphere during the whole of the Mesozoio period. A botanist, had there been such a person at the time, would have found this to be the case everywhere from the equator to Spitzbergen, and probably in the southern hemisphere as well, and this throughout all the long periods from the Early Trias to the Middle Cre- taceous. In a paper published in the " Linnsean Trans- actions" for 1868, Dr. Carruthers enumerates twenty spe- cies of British Mesozoic cycads, and the number might now be considerably increased. The pines present some features of interest. We have already seen their connection with the broad-leaved Gor- daites, and in the Permian there are some additional types of broad-leaved coniferae. In the Mesozoic we have great numbers of beautiful trees, with those elegant fan-shaped leaves characteristic of but one living species, the Salisburia, or gingko-tree of China. It is curious that this tree, though Fio. 66.—SaUaburia (Gincko) t -l j ± x * • SiMHea, Heer. L. cFeta- HOW limited to eastern Asia, oeous, feiberia and North ^ju ^.q^ though it rarely America. o ^ o j fruits, in most parts of tem- perate Europe, and in America as far north as Montreal, and that in the Mesozoic period it occupied all these re- gions, and even Siberia and Greenland, and with many and diversified species (Fig. 66).. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustra
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