We have as yet discovered no remains of the leaves, or trunk of Pandaneæ in a fossil state, but the presence of our unique fruit in the Inferior Oolite formation near Charmouth, carries us back to a point of time, when we know from other evidence that England was in the state of new-born land, emerging from the seas of a tepid climate; and shows that combinations of vegetable structure such as exist in the modern Pandaneæ, adapted in a peculiar manner to the office of vegetable colonization, prevailed also at the time when the Oolite rocks were in process of formation.
This fruit also adds a new link to the chain of evidence which makes known to us the Flora of the Secondary periods of geology, and therein discloses fresh proofs of Order, and Harmony, and of Adaptation of peculiar means to peculiar ends; extending backwards from the actual condition of our Planet through the manifold stages of change, which its ancient surface has undergone.[1]
SECTION II.
VEGETABLES IN STRATA ON THE TERTIARY SERIES.[2]
It has been stated that the vegetation of the Tertiary period presents the general character of that of our existing Continents within the Temperate Zone. In Strata of this Series, Dicotyledonous Plants assume nearly the same proportions as at present, and are four or five times more numerous than the Monocotyledonous; and the greater number of fossil Plants, although of extinct species, have much resemblance to living Genera.
- ↑ Fruits of another genus of Pandaneæ, to which Mr. Ad. Brongniart has given the name of Pandanocarpum, (Prodrome, p. 138,) occur together with fruits of Cocoa nut, at an early period of the Tertiary formations, among the numerous fossil fruits that are found in the London-clay of the Isle of Sheppey.
- ↑ See Pl. 1, Figs. 66 to 72.
