“The still greater richness of North-east Asia in arboreal vegetation may find explanation in the prevalence of particularly favourable conditions, both ante-glacial and recent. The trees of the Miocene circumpolar forest appear to have found there a secure home; and the Japanese islands, to which most of these trees belong, must be remarkably adapted to them. The situation of these islands—analogous to that of Great Britain, but with the advantage of lower latitude and greater sunshinetheir ample extent north and south, their diversified configuration, their proximity to the great Pacific gulf-stream, by which a vast body of warm water sweeps along their accentuated shores, and the comparatively equable diffusion of rain throughout the year, all probably conspire to the preservation and development of an originally ample inheritance.”
The comparative paucity in species of the west coast of America, though the Sequoias and some other forms which have perished elsewhere are retained there, is admitted to be exceptional, and not easily explained, except by the supposition of peculiar local conditions affecting the comparatively narrow strip of land between the Rocky Mountains and coast ranges, and the Pacific.
To such widely-distributed and varied and complex phenomena as those which have been discussed in the present chapter, it is impossible to do justice in the space at our command. Details in relation to them will be found in the publications of Heer, of Saporta, and of Lesquereux, and are well worthy of study by botanists, to whom alone they can be made fully intelligible. In general, with reference to now prevalent theories of derivation, they present two very dissimilar aspects. No difficulty can be greater to the evolutionist than to account for the simultaneous appearance of so many modern generic forms in the Cretaceous; and the fact of many of the genera presenting more and more species the farther we trace them back is a strange anomaly of evolution. On the other hand, the number of species continuing unchanged from the Eocene to the Modern, the others only slightly modified, and the representative species occurring in the floras of the old and new continents, appear to many to give great support to the doctrine of gradual transformation of species. Farther facts and farther comprehension of the difference between species and races will be necessary to the settlement of these questions. In the meantime it would appear that the Jurassic flora rapidly gave place, at a particular point of geological time, to that of the modern world, and this not merely in one locality, but over the whole northern hemisphere; and there are apparently similar facts in the southern hemisphere as well. It farther appears that each genus was at first represented by many species, and that as time went on these were gradually reduced to a few best suited to survive; and that the changes of climate and level which occurred distributed these over different parts of the continents in a way at first sight very anomalous, but which Prof. Gray somewhat quaintly represents as follows:—
“It is as if Nature, when she had enough species of a genus to go round the four floral regions (Europe, East Asia, West America, and East America), dealt them fairly one at least to each quarter of our zone; but when she had only two of some peculiar kind, gave one to us, and the other to Japan, Mantchuria, or the Himalayas; and when she had only one, divided it between the two partners on the opposite sides of the table.”
Lastly, it seems very probable that many so-called species are nothing more than varietal forms, which may very well be modified descendants of Miocene or Eocene plants now figuring in our lists under different names.
Sivatherium Giganteum.