collecting in the Gault, at Folkstone, for twenty years, during the latter part of which I have employed, constantly, a collector, goes far to show that up to that period dicotyledons did not exist, in these latitudes at least. Five new species of cones, branches of conifers with leaves attached, resin and coniferous wood are found, the latter abundantly, but no dicotyledons. I cannot but believe that had dicotyledons existed, some trace of them would by this time, have been found. The same is true of the Gault elsewhere, and especially in Hainault, where a more abundant flora has been brought to light. Neither in Neocomian, Gault, Upper Green sand or chalk, or any Cretaceous deposit in England, has anything leading to the supposition that dicotyledons were then in existence, yet been found. Dicotyledons may have been developing in other areas at this or an earlier period, especially towards the Poles, but from the evidence of British rocks, I should refuse, in the absence of confirmatory stratigraphical evidence, to assign so great an antiquity as that of our chalk to any deposits containing dicotyledons in our latitudes. If clearly older than our Eocene, I should refer them to the great intervening period.

From the almost complete absence of Cretaceous forms in even the lowest European Tertiaries, it seems to have been concluded everywhere, that all rocks containing even a small proportion of Cretaceous types, must be classed as of that age. Isolated protests have been raised, but their value has not been felt. This basis of classification is, in my opinion, entirely erroneous, or at least carried to an excess, for all we know is, that the fauna which existed in Cretaceous seas did not exist in those of the Eocene. How or when it disappeared from these areas we do not know. The extinction, or perhaps partly migration, must, however, have been a natural and gradual one, and we see in many distant countries, California, New Zealand, India, Vancouver's Land, for instance, that late Cretaceous types of fauna lived long after the time of which we have any record of them here, and mingled with a fauna whose characteristics are decidedly Eocene.

For the reasons already advanced I should regard the flora of Dakota, together with those of Nebraska, Vancouver's Land, New Zealand, and many European floras, characterized by an abundance of dicotyledons, as belonging to a vast intermediate period, and should adopt a name suggested by Hector for it— Cretaceo-Escene-in preference to the term Pal-Eocene, used by

Schimper, the latter having been applied by him to true Eocene floras.

With regard to the flora of the Great (1st group of Lesquereux) Lignite, I entertain no doubt whatever that it is of the age of our Middle Eocene, and perhaps partly of our Lower Eocene. I am not in a position yet to furnish any list of the fossil plants common to both, but the proportion is very considerable. The only groups I have studied are the ferns. Of a small list from our Middle Eocene, two of the most abundant have been described by Lesquereux from this formation, Lygodium kaulfussi Heer (L. neuropteroides Lesq.) and Osmunda1 (?) subcretacea Saporta (Gymnogramma haydeni Lesq.). Mr. Lesquereux has very generously himself assisted in these identifications, and I desire to express to him my thanks for his disinterested aid.

In addition to the similarity of the floras, there is other strong proof that the two formations are approximately contemporaneous. While in our lower Eocene deposits there appears but a small mixture of North American forms, so far as I know at present, in the Middle Eocene they suddenly greatly preponderate, almost to the exclusion of the Australian element previously manifest, and even of what was possibly an older indigenous flora. Judging as well from the Great Lignitic flora as from our own Middle Eocene, it appears evident that at this period land communication somewhere existed between them, which enabled them to. mingle to a very great extent; so much so, indeed, that the Pliocene flora of California, lately described by Lesquereux, more resembles our Middle Eocene Bournemouth flora as a whole, not specifically, than any other with which I am acquainted.

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NOTES ON THE FLOWERING OF SAXIFRAGA SARMENTOSA.

ONE

BY PROF. J. E. TODD.

NE often sees in window-gardens the plant popularly called strawberry geranium. As commonly seen, perched in a flower pot on a bracket, it seems to delight in letting down its young plantlets at the ends of thread-like runners, sounding the airy depths for resting places for them. Thus its native instincts appear, though many generations have passed since its ancestors More properly a new genus.

were learning the advantages of such an accomplishment on the mountains of China.

In flowering it throws up from a rosette of radical leaves a slender naked scape which gradually develops into a cymose panicle. The flowers are of the unique form shown in Figs. I and 2. The two lower petals are white, and from two to three times longer than the three upper ones, which are pink, and each marked by two darker spots and one yellow spot, the latter at the base. There are ten stamens arranged in two whorls, those alternate with the petals maturing a day or two earlier than the others. There are two pistils, and on the upper side of their ovaries a triple nectary, vide Fig. 3 e. This nectary, in its structure and position, suggests the idea that it may be formed of abortive pistils.

The flowers open with surprising regularity. There is first only one at the top of the scape, then when it has passed maturity the first at the ends of the branches open simultaneously; after these have passed their maturity, then the second ones on each branch open, and so on. This regularity is most apparent in the earlier flowering. When the panicle is crowded, unequal distribution of light, heat, etc., seems to confuse and break up this order somewhat. The table subjoined shows these facts. It should be remarked that the position of the plant examined was changed from time to time. There is an irregularity in the flowering of branches VIII and IX, which may be due to their unfavorable position at the very base of the panicle.

Several very curious facts concerning the order of development of the different organs of the flower, were noted.

1. Of the lower petals, which are always unequal, the longer one is always on the side toward the branch which forms the flower next succeeding. As this is

a

FIG. 1-Saxifraga sarmentosa (natural size); a, pistillate stage; b, staminate stage.

on opposite sides in successive flowers, it follows that the longer petals of flowers on any branch of the panicle are towards each other.. This relation is shown in Fig. 1.

2. In both sets of stamens, those on the lower side of the whorl develop first. No. 1 (vide Fig. 2)

always develops first, then Nos. 2 and 5 before Nos. 3 and 4; and in the second set Nos. 6 and 7 before 8 and 10, and No. 9 always

last.