Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/79

] must have formed a prominent feature in the landscape. Of the feather-palms the Phoenicites may be compared to the Piassava of Brazil, and had leaves two feet long, while the Manicaria possessed great undivided erect leaves springing from a lofty trunk.

The Meiocene poplars of Switzerland belong to the group of aspens, black poplars, balsam poplars, and leather poplars, with evergreen leaves, the first two of which are met with in Europe, Asia, and America, the third in America and Asia, while the fourth is now only found in Asia. The hornbeam and the hazel were present, and of the oak no less than thirty-five species have been determined, for the most part evergreens of American or Mediterranean types. There were also lindens, maples, hollies, walnuts, ilices, cherry, plum, and almond trees, mimosas and acacias, alders, birches, and other trees familiar to our eyes. The genus Planera is the most interesting Meiocene representative of the elm family, since it ranges from central Italy as far as Greenland, and from the canton of Vaud in the west to Tokay, in Hungary, on the east. It probably formed woods on the low damp grounds close to the rivers. At the present time it is found in Crete, in Asia, south of the Caucasus, and in North America. Myrtles formed dense copses, for the most part evergreen; and the fig trees, represented by seventeen species in the Swiss Meiocenes, belong to Indian and American types, one of which is remarkably like the Indiarubber tree (Ficus elastica), and another like the bread-fruit. It is a curious fact that the present European fig-tree (Ficus carica) is absent from this flora. The laurels were more abundant than the figs in Switzerland, the two most important species being the camphor tree and Scheuchzer's cinnamon tree. These range