They consist of blue clays with some subordinate layers of lignite,
and exhibit a richer flora than the overlying Newer Pliocene beds, and one
receding farther from the existing vegetation of Europe. They also comprise more
species common to the antecedent Miocene period. Among the genera of flowering
plants, M. Gaudin enumerates pine, oak, evergreen oak, plum, plane, alder, elm,
fig, laurel, maple, walnut, birch, buckthorn, hickory, sumach, sarsaparilla,
sassafras, cinnamon, Glyptostrobus, Taxodium, Sequoia, Persea, Oreodaphne
(Figure 134), Cassia, and Psoralea, and some others. This assemblage of plants
indicates a warm climate, but not so subtropical an one as that of the Upper
Miocene period, which will presently be considered.
(FIGURE 135. Liquidambar europaeum, var. trilobatum, A. Br. (sometimes four-
lobed, and more commonly five-lobed).
a. Leaf, half natural size.
b. Part of same, natural size.
c. Fruit, natural size.
d. Seed, natural size. Oeningen.)
M. Gaudin, jointly with the Marquis Strozzi, has thrown much light on the botany
of beds of the same age in another part of Tuscany, at a place called Montajone,
between the rivers Elsa and Evola, where, among other plants, is found the
Oreodaphne Heerii, Gaud.
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