The genealogy of the Torreyas is still wholly obscure; yet it is not
unlikely that the yew-like trees, named Taxites, which flourished with the
Sequoias in the tertiary arctic forests, are the remote ancestors of the
three species of Torreya, now severally in Florida, in California, and in
Japan.
As to the pines and firs, these were more numerously associated with the
ancient Sequoias of the polar forests than with their present
representatives, but in different species, apparently more like those of
Eastern than of Western North America. They must have encircled the polar
zone then, as they encircle the present temperate zone now.
I must refrain from all enumeration of the angiospermous or ordinary
deciduous trees and shrubs, which are now known, by their fossil remains,
to have flourished throughout the polar regions when Greenland better
deserved its name and enjoyed the present climate of New England and New
Jersey. Then Greenland and the rest of the north abounded with oaks,
representing the several groups of species which now inhabit both our
Eastern and Western forest districts; several poplars, one very like our
balsam poplar or balm-of-Gilead tree; more beeches than there are now, a
hornbeam, and a hop-hornbeam, some birches, a persimmon, and a planer-tree,
near representatives of those of the Old World, at least of Asia, as well
as of Atlantic North America, but all wanting in California; one Juglans
like the walnut of the Old World, and another like our black walnut; two or
three grapevines, one near our Southern fox grape or muscadine, another
near our Northern frostgrape; a Tilia, very like our basswood of the
Atlantic States only; a Liquidambar; a magnolia, which recalls our M.
grandiflora; a Liriodendron, sole representative of our tulip-tree; and a
sassafras, very like the living tree.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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