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Updated: May 25, 2025
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.
Along the edge of the rivulet, large water-plants projected their broad leaves languidly over the stream; and where the little cascades came down from the rocks, the flowers of beautiful orchids, and other rare epiphytes, were seen sparkling under the spray many of them clinging to the coniferae, and thus uniting almost the extreme types of the botanical world!
The only phaenogamous plants were constitute any feature in the coal are the coniferae; monocotyledonous angiosperms appear to have been very rare, and the dicotyledonous, with one or two doubtful exceptions, were wanting.
"It is fir, pine, or birch, and other northern coniferae, mineralised by the action of the sea. It is called surturbrand, a variety of brown coal or lignite, found chiefly in Iceland." "But surely, then, like other fossil wood, it must be as hard as stone, and cannot float?"
It is a remarkable fact, as he justly observes, that the angiospermous exogens, which comprise four-fifths of living plants a division to which all our native European trees, except the Coniferae, belong, and which embrace all the Compositae, Leguminosae, Umbelliferae, Cruciferae, Heaths, and so many other families are wholly unrepresented by any fossils hitherto discovered in the Primary and Secondary formations from the Silurian to the Oolitic inclusive.
Trigonocarpum olivaeforme, Lindley, with its fleshy envelope. Hooker, be referred, like the Sternbergia, to the Coniferae. Its geological importance is great, for so abundant is it in the coal-measures, that in certain localities the fruit of some species may be procured by the bushel; nor is there any part of the formation where they do not occur, except the under-clays and limestone.
The concentric rings of the Craigleith and other coniferae of this era have been mentioned. It is interesting to find in these a record of the changing seasons of those early ages, when as yet there were no human beings to observe time or tide.
We think again and then recognize in the puzzling substance the semitransparent fracture, the quality of becoming soft when exposed to heat and of burning with a smoky flame, the solubility in spirits of wine in short, all the distinguishing characteristics of resin. Here then are two more collectors of the exudations of the Coniferae.
Nature was reviving; and among the evergreen foliage of the coniferae which formed the border of the wood, already appeared the young leaves of the banksias, deodars, and other trees. It may be remembered that Gideon Spilett and Herbert had, at different times, taken photographic views of Lincoln Island.
The Coniferae were chiefly represented in the middle periods by the Cycadae, that peculiar group of Coniferae, resembling Pines in their structure, but recalling the Ferns by their external appearance.
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