Fossil Plants as Tests of Climate

Abstract

MR. J. STARKIE GARDNER, in his interesting review of Mr. Seward's valuable essay, makes a statement which I fancy may be misinterpreted at page 268 of NATURE, where he speaks of the fragmentary character of the Arctic tertiary plants, and the inexperience of the collectors. He doubtless is referring to the remains of certain supposed “palms and cycads in the Greenland Eocene,” but those who have not followed this branch of Arctic research would hardly gather from the review that Prof. Heer has determined a magnificent flora of more than 350 species from these northern tertiaries, and that he at once pointed out the absence of tropical and subtropical forms, and the fact that large leaves are not only perfectly preserved up to their edges, but that upright trees associated with their fruits and seeds prove them to have grown on the spot. “Thus of Sequoia Langsdorffi,” he writes, “we see not only the twigs covered with leaves, but also cones and seeds, and even a male catkin”.¹