When the flowering plants were heralded in they appeared in large numbers, and already by the Cretaceous period there were very many different species. Of these a number seem to belong to genera which are still living, and many of them are extremely like living species. It would be wearisome and of little value to give a list of all the recorded species from this period, but a few of the commoner ones may be mentioned to illustrate the nature of the plants then flourishing. Several species of _Quercus_ (the Oak) appeared early, particularly _Quercus Ilex_; leaves of the _Juglandaceæ_ (Walnut family) were very common, and among the Tertiary fossils appear its fruits. Both _Populus_ (the Poplar) and _Salix_ (the Willow) date from the early rocks, while _Ficus_ (the Fig) was very common, and _Casuarina_ (the Switch Plant) seems to have been widely spread. Magnolias also were common, and it appears that _Platanus_ (the Plane) and _Eucalyptus_ coexisted with them. It will be immediately recognized that the above plants have all living representatives, either wild or cultivated, growing in this country at the present day, so that they are more or less familiar objects, and there appears to have been no striking difference between the early flowering plants and those of the present day. Between the ancient Lycopods, for example, and those now living the differences are very noteworthy; but the earliest of the known flowering plants seem to have been essentially like those now flourishing. It must be remembered in this connection that the existing flowering plants are immensely nearer in point of time to their origin than are the existing Lycopods, and that when such æons have passed as divide the present from the Palæozoic, the flowering plants of the future may have dwindled to a subordinate position corresponding to that held by the Lycopods now.