Note on the Fossil Leaves represented in Plates II. III. and IV

From among the numerous vegetable remains contained in the Ardtun beds, a few of the most perfect impressions of plants, mostly of leaves only, have been selected for illustration. In accordance with custom, specific names are assigned to these provisionally, for the sake of distinguishing between the kinds found, and of comparing them with fossils of a similar kind found elsewhere. Without much more data than such impressions, however perfect, afford, anything like a specific diagnosis, satisfactory to a botanist, could not be constructed. The general assemblage of leaves when judged by the present state of our knowledge of the vegetation of ancient epochs is decidedly tertiary, and most probably of that stage of tertiary termed Miocene. Their climatal aspect is more mid-European than that of our eocene flora. There is a striking resemblance between many of them and fossils from Styria and Croatia; but so far as I have had opportunities of comparing either with specimens or good figures, the Mull fossils are in all probability distinct from any recorded species. I cannot identify any of them with British eocene forms. Plate II. fig. 1 a , 1 b . Taxites? Campbellii . Fragments of a coniferous tree, possibly a Taxus ; allied to the Taxites Rosthorni of Unger, from the miocene lignite of Carinthia. Plate II. fig. 2 a , 2 b . Part of a frond, probably that of a fern, but presenting some anomalous features which future specimens will probably explain. For the present it may be called Filicites? hebridicus . Plate III.