Links With the Past in the Plant World

The Maiden Hair tree of China and Japan, which was introduced into Europe early in the eighteenth century, has now become fairly well known. Though hardy in England, it requires...

'No speculation is idle or fruitless that is not opposed to truth or to probability, and which, whilst it co-ordinates a body of well established facts, does so without violence...

'It has been shown that certain forms persist with very little change, from the oldest to the newest fossiliferous formations; and thus show that progressive development is a co...

'All the Epochs of the Past are only a few of the front carriages, and probably the least wonderful, in the van of an interminable procession.' J. B. Bury (_The Science of Histo...

'Believe me who have tried. Thou wilt find something more in woods than in books. Trees and rocks will teach what thou canst not hear from a master.' St Bernard.

The failure of the earlier naturalists to grasp the true significance of fossils or even to appreciate their nature is an extraordinary fact when we consider the pioneer work wh...

As an additional illustration of existing cone-bearing trees which form links with the past we may briefly consider the genera Araucaria and Agathis, the two members of the fami...

Since their introduction into England about the middle of the nineteenth century, the two Californian species _Sequoia sempervirens_ (the Redwood) and _Sequoia gigantea_ (the Ma...