The European or American landscape--indeed, the aspect of the
earth generally, for there are no pronounced zones of climate--is
still utterly different from any that we know to-day. No grass
carpets the plains; none of the flowers or trees with which we
are familiar, except conifers, are found in any region. Ferns
grow in great abundance, and have now reached many of the forms
with which we are acquainted. Thickets of bracken spread over the
plains; clumps of Royal ferns and Hartstongues spring up in
moister parts. The trees are conifers, cycads, and trees akin to
the ginkgo, or Maidenhair Tree, of modern Japan. Cypresses, yews,
firs, and araucarias (the Monkey Puzzle group) grow everywhere,
though the species are more primitive than those of today. The
broad, fan-like leaves and plum-like fruit of the ginkgoales, of
which the temple-gardens of Japan have religiously preserved a
solitary descendant, are found in the most distant regions. But
the most frequent and characteristic tree of the Jurassic
landscape is the cycad.
The cycads--the botanist would say Cycadophyta or Cycadales, to
mark them off from the cycads of modern times--formed a third of
the whole Jurassic vegetation, while to-day they number only
about a hundred species in 180,000, and are confined to warm
latitudes.
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