In eastern Canada there is a very complete series of fossil plants, extending from the Silurian to the Permian, and intermediate in its species between the floras of interior America and of Europe. I may use this succession, mainly worked out by myself,[FG] to summarise the various Palæozoic floras and sub-floras, in order to give a condensed view of this portion of the history of the vegetable kingdom, and to direct attention to the important fact, too often overlooked, that there is a definite succession of fossil plants as well as of animals, and that this is important as a means of determining geological horizons. A British list for comparison has been kindly prepared for me by Mr. R. Kidston, F. Gr. S. For lists referring to the western and southern portions of America, I may refer to the reports of Lesquereux and Fontaine and White.[FH] [FG] "Acadian Geology," "Reports on Fossil Plants of Canada," Geological Survey of Canada. [FH] "Geological Surveys of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois." In this connection I am reminded, by an excellent little paper of M. Zeiller,[FI] on Carboniferous plants from the region of the Zambesi, in Africa, that the flora which in the Carboniferous period extended over the temperate portions of the northern hemisphere and far into the arctic, also passed across the equator and prevailed in the southern hemisphere. Of eleven species brought from the Zambesi by M. Lapierre and examined by M. Zeiller, all were identical with European species of the upper coal-formation, and the same fact has been observed in the coal flora of the Cape Colony.[FJ] These facts bear testimony to the remarkable uniformity of climate and vegetation in the coal period, and I perfectly agree with Zeiller that they show, when taken in connection with other parallelisms in fossils, an actual contemporaneousness of the coal flora over the whole world. [FI] Paris, 1883. [FJ] Grey, "Journal of the Geological Society," vol. xxvii. 1. Carboniferous Flora. (1) _Permo-Carboniferous Sub-Flora_: This occurs in the upper member of the Carboniferous system of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, originally named by the writer the Newer Coal-formation, and more recently the Permo-Carboniferous, and the upper beds of which may not improbably be contemporaneous with the Lower Permian or Lower Dyas of Europe. In this formation there is a predominance of red sandstones and shales, and it contains no productive beds of coal. Its fossil plants are for the most part of species found in the Middle or Productive Coal-formation, but are less numerous, and there are a few new forms akin to those of the European Permian. The most characteristic species of the upper portion of the formation, which has the most decidedly Permian aspect, are the following: