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But the predominant order is the Proteaceae, of which there are between sixty and seventy supposed species, many of extinct genera, but some referred to the following living forms Dryandra, Grevillea, Hakea, Banksia, Persoonia all now belonging to Australia, and Leucospermum, species of which form small bushes at the Cape.
Fruit of the fossil and recent species of Hakea, a genus of Proteaceae. a. Leaf of fossil species, Hakea salicina. Impression of woody fruit of same, showing thick stalk. 2/3 diameter. c. Seed of same, natural size. d. Fruit of living Australian species, Hakea saligna, R. Brown. 1/2 diameter. e.
The thickness of the marls is ten feet, and vegetable matter predominates so much in some layers as to form an imperfect lignite. Some of the upper beds at Monod abound in leaves of Proteaceae, Cyperaceae, and ferns, while in some of the lower ones Sequoia, Cinnamomum, and Sparganium are common.
Both the leaves and seeds have been found at Oeningen, and bunches of compressed grapes of the same species have been met with in the brown coal of Wetteravia in Germany. Leaves of plants supposed to belong to the order Proteaceae have been obtained partly from Oeningen and partly from the lacustrine formation of the same age at Locle in the Jura.
The nearest living Proteaceae now feel the in Abyssinia in latitude 20 degrees N., but the greatest number are confined to the Cape and Australia. All geologists agree that the distribution of the Cretaceous land and sea had scarcely any connection with the present geography of the globe. Glyptostrobus Europaeus.
It will suffice to quote the highest authority, Robert Brown, who in speaking of certain organs in the Proteaceae, says their generic importance, "like that of all their parts, not only in this but, as I apprehend, in every natural family, is very unequal, and in some cases seems to be entirely lost."
The trees, with the exception of the flooded-gum, are of stunted habit; and scrub is here developed ad infinitum. I examined the wood of all the arborescent Proteaceae which I met with, and observed in all of them, with the exception of Persoonia, the great development of the medullary rays, as it exists in several species of Casuarina.
Besides fir-cones or fruit of true Coniferae there are cones of Proteaceae in abundance, and the celebrated botanist the late Robert Brown pointed out the affinity of these to the New Holland types Petrophila and Isopogon. Of the first there are about fifty, and of the second thirty described species now living in Australia. Eocene Proteaceous Fruit. Petrophiloides Richardsoni.
It will suffice to quote the highest authority, Robert Brown, who, in speaking of certain organs in the Proteaceae, says their generic importance, "like that of all their parts, not only in this, but, as I apprehend in every natural family, is very unequal, and in some cases seems to be entirely lost."
It is a known fact that among the living Proteaceae the cones are very firmly attached to the branches, so that the seeds drop out without the cone itself falling to the ground, and this may perhaps be the reason why, in some instances in which fossil seeds have been found, no traces of the cone have been observed. Sequoia Langsdorfii. Ad. Brong., 1/3 natural size.
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