All over the earth, from the Arctic to the Antarctic,
their palm-like foliage showered from the top of their generally
short stems in the Jurassic. But the most interesting point about
them is that a very large branch of them (the Bennettiteae) went
far beyond the modern Gymnosperm in their flowers and fruit, and
approached the Angiosperms. Their fructifications "rivalled the
largest flowers of the present day in structure and modelling"
(Scott), and possibly already gave spots of sober colour to the
monotonous primitive landscape. On the other hand, they
approached the ferns so much more closely than modern cycads do
that it is often impossible to say whether Jurassic remains must
be classed as ferns or cycads.
We have here, therefore, a most interesting evolutionary group.
The botanist finds even more difficulty than the zoologist in
drawing up the pedigrees of his plants, but the general features
of the larger groups which he finds in succession in the
chronicle of the earth point very decisively to evolution. The
seed-bearing ferns of the Coal-forest point upward to the later
stage, and downward to a common origin with the ordinary
spore-bearing ferns.
Pages:
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256