Abstract
THIS is a defence of the identification of fossil plants from the Tertiary beds of Europe, chiefly from Austria and Hungary, with existing Australian genera. Baron Ettingshausen himself is largely responsible for these identifications, which have been questioned “by certain critics insufficiently acquainted with the subject.” He claims that he was supported in his views by such eminent palæontologists as Franz Unger and Oswald Heer. It is now some years since Unger published his sensational “Neuholland in Europa.” In this little work almost every one of a set of Eocene fossil plants is identified with some essentially Australian genus, and often, we should add, on the very slenderest of material. The late Mr. G. Bentham, who, as is well known, handled and described every Australian plant of which specimens had been collected up to his time, disputed the correctness of the identifications, and endeavoured to prove that the remains might well be those of genera still found in the northern hemisphere; yet Baron Ettingshausen gives us to understand that Mr. Bentharn confirmed his determination of a European fossil leaf as belonging to the genus Dryandra.
Das australische Florenelement in Europa.
Von Dr. Constantin Freiherr Ettingshausen. (Pp. 10. Tab. I. (Graz: Leuschner and Lubensky, 1890.)
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H., W. Das australische Florenelement in Europa. Nature 41, 365–366 (1890). https://doi.org/10.1038/041365b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/041365b0
