"The predominance of Algæ and marine Monocotyledons, which must be ascribed to the great extent of marine formations during this epoch.
"The existence of a great number of extra European forms, resulting especially from the presence of the fossil fruits of Sheppey.
"2d, In regard to the Miocene epoch, the abundance of palms in the greater number of localities belonging, without doubt, to this epoch; the existence of a considerable number of non-European forms, in particular of the genus Steinhauera, which appears to me to be a rubiaceæ allied to nauclea, found in many localities of these formations.
"3d, In regard to the Pliocene epoch, the great predominance and variety of Dicotyledons, the rarity of Monocotyledons, and, above all, the absence of Palms; lastly, the general analogy of the forms of these plants with those of the temperate regions of Europe, North America, and Japan.
"A remarkable character of the Floras of these three epochs, but which is most striking in regard to the last, in which the dicotyledonous plants are most numerous, is the absence of the most numerous and characteristic families of the division of Gamopetalis. Thus, among the numerous impressions of Partschlug, Œningen, Hœrring, Radoboj, &c., there is nothing to indicate the existence of the Compositæ, Campanulaceæ, Personneæ, Labiaceæ, Solaniæ, Boraginaæ, &c.
"The only Monopetales mentioned in great numbers are the Ericaceæ, Ilicineæ, some Sapotaceæ, and Styraceæ, families which belong almost as much to the Dialypetales as to the Gamopetales.
"In the Miocene flora only have been pointed out many Apocyneæ, and Rubiaceæ, which I have mentioned above.
"1. Eocene Epoch.—This epoch, in the most precise limits, comprehends plastic clay with its lignites, the coarse Parisian limestone and gypsum which lie above it in the same basin; but I have not thought it worth while, in the meantime, to separate from it some formations which, according to the investigations of modern geologists, are placed between the Cretaceous formations and the inferior parts of the formations mentioned; such are the Nummulitic formations of the Vicentin, comprehending the celebrated locality of Monte-Bolca, and probably some others near it, such as Salcedo, in the Vicentin. I have likewise joined to this Flora of the Eocene formations a very remarkable locality of the basin of Paris, the relations of which with the Tertiary beds are not yet perfectly determined,—these are the beds of a species of ancient Travertin which, near Sezanne, contain numerous fossil vegetables still undescribed, and of which I shall here notice the most remarkable. These plants have very peculiar remains, and belong probably to a special Flora, unless the differences can be ascribed to a diversity of station.
"Besides the different members of the Eocene formation, properly so called, of the Paris basin, I comprehend in this Flora the fossils of the same formation in England, at the Isle of Wight, and Isle of Sheppey in the London basin. These latter fossils, consisting almost solely of fruits transformed into pyrites, constitute a whole which has no analogue in any other of the Tertiary basins of Europe; not only in the number and diversity of these fruits, but in their peculiar characters, which remove them widely from the plants whose leaves occur in the other beds of the same geological epoch. Everything, therefore, would lead us to suppose that these fruits, although belonging to plants cotemporaneous with the Eocene deposits of Europe, have been brought from distant countries by marine currents, just as fruits are still brought from the equatorial regions of America to the coasts of Ireland or Norway by the great current of the Atlantic. The deposit in the Isle of Sheppey appears therefore to be an accidental case in the Eocene deposits, and the Paris basin presents none of these fossils.
"The Tertiary basin of Belgium, which follows that of London, has yielded, near Brussels, some fossil fruits in very small numbers, but which appear identical with one of the genera most abundant at Sheppey. This is the Nipadites, considered at first as a species of Coco, under the name of Cocus burtini.