ON SOME CONIFERS AND THEIR "DISTRIBUTION. 253
land, associated with such flowering plants as the Cinnamon
and Tulip-tree, indicating that they lived in a warm climate.
To quote Prof. Seward : "Where to-day is an Arctic flora of
"prostrate willows and dwarf birch, in the Cretaceous period
"there were forests of conifers and flowering trees and an
"abundance of ferns belonging to families that are now mainly
"tropical;" he adds, "It must be remembered that the wood
"may have been drifted by currents before it was petrified ;
"we cannot be sure where the trees grew."
Another genus exhibited, Athrotaxis, has three living species,
wild only in the mountains of Western Tasmania; in Cretaceous
times it was represented in Patagonia, and in Jurassic times in
Germany, where both the foliage shoots and cones closely re-
semble those of the living Tasmanian plants.
The genus Cryptomeria is now represented by a single species,
the Japanese Cedar, C. japonica, with its soft spreading juvenile
foliage and stiff ascending mature leaves ; it is native only in
Japan and China. In Eocene times this noble tree, which
may attain a height of 150 feet, formed forests in Northern
Ireland. Indeed, to quote again from Prof. Seward : "The
"Tertiary records show very clearly that the vegetation of the
"northern hemisphere included a much greater variety of
"conifers than is seen in the forests of the present age. They
"show also that many of the genera which are now confined
"to restricted areas either in the Far East, North America or
"in other widely separated regions, were common trees in a
"belt of forest stretching without interruption across the
"temperate regions to the north of the Tethys Sea.2 It
"would seem probable that many of these genera had their
"original home in the Arctic regions."
We have seen that Cryptomeria lived in Northern Ireland
in Eocene times ; is there any evidence of the genus, or one
nearly allied to it, being represented in older rocks ? Before
following up this question it may be well to consider the structure
of the cones of conifers more closely in order that we may
know what is to be looked for.
In pines, cedars, firs, Cryptomeria, and a number of other
genera of conifers, the cone-scales that build up the cone have
2 The Tethys Sea was a great world-encircling sea of which the Roman Mediterranean is
a diminished descendant ; geologists find that it existed from Pahaeozoic to Cretaceous times.