limited range; thus, one of the Nymphæacea, Nymphæa Arethusa, or probably Nuphar lutea, is found in the upper fresh-water formation. One species of Betula, B. Dryadum; one of Carpinus, C. macroptera; one of Comptonia, C. acutiloba, are met with in the lignite of the tertiary beds. And another species of Comptonia, C. Dryandrafolia, is peculiar to the lower fresh-water formation. The three or four species of walnuts known in a fossil state are said by Brongniart to be Juglans Nux Taurensis, proper to the upper marine deposit; J. ventricosa and J. lævigata to the lignites of the tertiary beds; and J. Salinarum to the marine formation of Wieluzka. Besides these, one species of Laurus, the Cinnamomum, is said to have been recognized in the fresh-water deposits, at Aix, where there have likewise been found the leaves of some leguminous plants, the generic affinities of which cannot be traced, and to which the name Phaseolites has been given.

(4884.) In the true secondary or supermedial strata, that is, in all the beds above the carboniferous, and below the supercretaceous series, the remains of plants belonging to this class are very rare. In the chalk and in the Jura, the shelly and the magnesian limestone, none have been found; and a solitary species of walnut is alone mentioned as having been discovered in the upper bed of new red sandstone.

(4885.) A remarkable change, however, occurs in the carboniferous series, for

A, a. Stigmaria ficoides. B. Calamites nodosus.

c. Asterophyllites foliosa. c, a. Ditto galioides. D. Cardiocarpon acutum. (a) Ditto natural size. E. Sigillaria pachyderma. (a) Fragment of one of the branching roots. (b) Part of the decorticated stem.

[From Lindley and Hutton's Fossil Flora.]

there among ferns and palms, and pines, among the earlier and richer vegetations of the world, the Rosares, or at least some representatives of them, are met with

in profusion; and, though the extent may be almost inconceivable to those who have not personally examined the beds, to all who have seen them, the incredible abundance in which they are found may be taken as evidence of their prevalence in the coal epoch: as their exceeding size is a proof of their luxuriant growth. These fossils, which are familiar to all who have ever examined, or who have even entered a coal-mine, are the Cactites and Euphorbites of Sternberg, Artis, and others. Adolphe Brongniart, who doubts their relationship to the modern Cacti and Euphorbia, has called them Sigillaria and Stigmaria. As these latter names do not implicate any questioned proposition, they are perhaps the preferable ones; and the more especially as, although, from recent researches and observations, the opinions of Sternberg and Artis are in part confirmed, viz. as to their being the remains of succulent exogenous or dicotyledonous vegetables, possessed of distinct bark, wood, and pitch, but in which the parenchyma was greatly developed; still their immediate affinity to either of our modern succulent groups, such as the Mesembracea, Crassulaceæ, Stapeliacea, Euphorbiacea, and Nopalacea, cannot be said to be definitively determined. That their relationship to the latter two is by far the strongest there is no doubt; yet, as neither leaves, flowers, nor fruit, have been hitherto discovered, it is better not to assume a closer connexion than subsequent experience may be enabled to confirm.

(4886.) Von Martius, who enjoyed excellent opportunities of observing the babits and varied forms of Cacti in their most luxuriant states of modern growth, in Brazil, and the other parts of tropical America, appears to be strongly impressed with the close similitude observable between these fossils and recent Cacti ; and he even attempts to trace the resemblance of the different fossil remains to several existing species, as to Cactus tetragonus, pentagonus, hexagonus, &c. While his Cactites tessellatus, he thinks rather to belong to the subgenus Opuntia than to the genuine Cacti. Lindley and Hutton, however, seem to incline to the opinion of the nearer connexion of the Stigmaria to the Euphorbiacea, than to the Nopalacea, or rather, to some intermediate type that is now extinct.

(4887.) Besides the above, there are many other vegetable remains which appear to approximate the exogenous series, but the affinities of which are at present not well made out. There are various unrecognized stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits, known under the collective names of Exogenites, Phyllites (?) Antholites (?) and Carpolithes; some of which are indeed very questionable associates. These groups, which at present are for the most part heterogeneous and ill assorted, will hereafter be subdivided, so as to form more definite and satisfactory genera. Several generic groups have indeed already been separated from them, such as the Annularia, of which Brongniart mentions seven species as occurring in the coal measures, and some of these he thinks may belong to the genus Bechera; another species of which, B. grandis, he calls Asterophyllites dubia. Of the fossils named Asterophyllites 12 or 13 species have been distinguished; the whole of which, with a solitary exception, belong to the coal measures. This exception is however an important one, for A. pygmea is proper to the transition series. The affinities of the Asterophyllites, [§ 4885, c.] is very problematical. Brongniart suggests their resemblance to Hippuris, Myriophyllum, or Ceratophyllum, while the authors of the Fossil Flora of Great Britain hint at their similitude to some of the Rubiacea.

(4888.) The affinities of the so-called Phyllotheca, Calamites, [§ 4738, B], and

Volkmannia, have yet to be traced; further than that they have an exogenous tendency, and this less decided in the latter two than in the former, nothing can with safety be affirmed. The seeds, which have received the name of Cardiocarpa, are equally debateable as to their affinities; they are most probably the seeds of some dicotyledonous plant with an aggregate inflorescence, but whether they are the seeds of an Asterophyllites, or of some extinct genus of the Umbelliferæ, as suggested by Lindley and Hutton, it is impossible at present to determine.

(4889.) There is a very remarkable fossil, which Sternberg has included among bis Lepidodendra, and called L. dichotomum, the L. Sternbergii of Brongniart; but Von Martius believes it to be the type of a new and distinct genus, which he proposes to name Lychnophorites, on account of its resemblance to the genus Lychnophora, which he discovered in the province of Minas Geraes, in Brazil, at the height of 2000 feet and upwards above the level of the sea, and especially in the diamond district. Of this newly discovered genus, which belongs to the natural order Asterianæ or Composite, there are several species, such as Lychnophora Pinaster, rosmarinifolia, &c., forming shrubs about the height of a man. "They are much allied," he continues, "to the Vernoniæ of Linneus, and the Pullalesta of Humboldt, which seem to correspond in every particular with our petrified plant." And hence, if the conclusion of Martius be correct, there is found in the coal-seams of the North of England the relics of a plant allied to the tropical arborescent composite of the present day.

(4890.) Thus it appears that the correspondence of the geographical distribution with the geological position of the Rosares is, like that of the other classes, most decided. These plants, which are now so prevalent on the surface of the earth as to constitute emphatically the Flora of our epoch, are found in profusion in the upper strata of the globe: there, and there only, do they obtain any thing like the proportion to other fossils that they hold with relation to other recent plants. From the secondary strata they are all but absent; and, although they are found in profusion in the carboniferous rocks, they are only present by the relics of genera now extinct, and the nearest resemblances of which are our tropical Euphorbiacea and Nopalace, or to the arborescent Composita, peculiar now to equinoctial regions, and especially to insular situations within the torrid zone. The extraordinary similitude, nay, almost absolute identity, of the organic remains of the superficial strata in European countries with their existing flora, is most worthy of remark; and, although the geological researches in other quarters of the globe do not as yet afford the means of ascertaining whether such a parallel exists every where, still, as in the alluvial deposits, and in the upper tertiary beds of northern latitudes, plants proper to the northern regions are found; so likewise it is more than probable, that when examinations are made, the remains of recent tropical plants will be found in the equivalent beds of the torrid zone. But what will be the probable character of the fossil remains of the equinoctial coal-beds? what plants will they resemble? and how great will their deviation be from any existing species?-seeing that the fossils of our carboniferous series appear to be the remains of vegetables, which enjoyed a climate hotter than that which now prevails beneath the line.

OUTLINES OF SELANTHOLOGIA.

(4891.) Certain splendid Oriental parasites, only within the last few years discovered, and several others, natives both of Europe and America, which, although longer found, can scarcely be said to have been longer truly known, so strangely were they at one time misunderstood, form, like the Cycases and the Pines, a small but very natural class, and one in which, by a rapid series of degradations, the most highly developed plants, the most elaborate examples of vegetable structure, are affianced, and become connected with some of the earliest and simplest grades.

(4892.) The gorgeous appearance and gigantic size of some of these extraordinary parasites, such as the Rafflesia, may well vindicate their collective appellation, SELANTHI, should that word seem preferable to CYTINARES, a derivative of Cytinus, the name of one of the longest known, but more humble and less showy geTo these terms, however, as the whole of the plants are foreigners, and the chief of extra-European growth, no familiar English equivalents can be expected to be found; and hence Selworts, formed on the model of some of the older names of plants, such as Sel-ago, ground-sel, &c. may be taken as a translation or a synonyme.

nera.

(4893.) The Selanthi are cellular or almost evascular leafless flowering plants; thus, in their organs of vegetation being connected with the leafless, flowerless fungi, and by their organs of fructification with the tubivascular mono- and di-cotyledons; and hence has arisen the systematic paradoxes of at one time beholding these so-called cellular plants arranged amongst the tubivascular Exogene and Endogene, and at another of finding some of them,

as the Rafflesiæ, which consist exclusively of flower, located amongst the flowerless acotyledons in the class Cryptogamia.

Several anticipations of a relapse towards the earliest and simplest forms of vegetable structure were observable in the preceding class; for some of the parasitic Rosares, such especially as the Orobanchacea, Monotropa of the Pyrolide, and even Cuscuta of the Convolvulacea, agree in their parasitic habit with these plants; and the former are not only destitute of leaves, but also are furnished with scales in their stead, while the latter not only has an acotyledonous embryo, but establishes, through its associates, the Convolvulida, where the seed-lobes are shrivelled, a connexion between the embryonate and inembryonate vegetables: indeed, it is a question still undecided, whether Lathraa does or does not produce perfect seeds.

(4894.) CYTINUS, the Hypocist of the ancients, and CYNOMORIUM [§ 114], the old Fungus Melitensis, or mushroom of Malta, have been the longest known, and at various times, as already hinted, they have been very variously placed in systematic arrangements. The latter, as its old name, Maltese Champignon, hints, was at one time supposed to be a fungus: by Jussieu it was left unarranged; but by Richard it was subsequently associated with Cytinus, and placed amongst the dicotyledonous Exogene by others, however, both it and several of its West Indian allies have been affirmed to be mono- rather than dicotyledonous plants, and their nearest affinities declared to be with the Aroidea (Callacea) and Hydrocharideæ. Agardh, on the contrary, includes them among the Urticidæ, considering them indeed only a subdivision of his Urticea; while Brown, who associates Rafflesia with Cytinus, and sanctions Brongniart's opinion of its relationship with Nepenthes, also corroborates Jussieu's approximation of Cytinus to the Asarinæ, or Aristolochiacea; but he considers the other genera as essentially distinct. Blume, in his Flora Java, has given to Cytinus, the Rafflesia, and their immediate allies, the common name Rhizanthea; and Sprengel makes the Rhizanthea, some of which consist of flower alone, the first order of his Cryptogamia, or flowerless class. Bartling associates the whole with the peppers, the taccas, and the water-lilies, under the collective term Chlamydoblasta, a subdivision of his Vegetabilia dicotyledonea; and numerous other speculations as to their systematic disposition have been adventured, one of the most plausible of which is their association with the parasitic Orobanches; but these it would be tedious further to dwell on, as the foregoing examples will sufficiently prove the uncertainty as to their chief affinities which has so long prevailed, and may excuse, if not justify, the present scheme.

(4895.) As already stated in the general Outline [§ 109, 110, 113], these vegetables differ from other flowering plants, whether of the Exogenous or Endogenous series, not only by their habit and port, both of which are peculiar, but also in their internal structure; for anatomical investigations have shown that, like the fungi, which they so curiously simulate in their destitution of leaves and parasitic habits, they chiefly consist of cellular or subcellular structure, which is