A few words in the language of the modern botanist will show how this
vegetation harmonises with the story of evolution. Plants are broadly
divided into the lower kingdom of the Cryptogams (spore-bearing) and the
upper kingdom of the Phanerogams (seed-bearing). As we saw, the Primary
Era was predominantly the age of Cryptogams; the later periods witness
the rise and supremacy of the Phanerogams. But these in turn are broadly
divided into a less advanced group, the Gymnosperms, and a more advanced
group, the Angiosperms or flowering plants. And, just as the Primary Era
is the age of Cryptogams, the Secondary is the age of Gymnosperms, and
the Tertiary (and present) is the age of Angiosperms. Of about 180,000
species of plants in nature to-day more than 100,000 are Angiosperms;
yet up to the end of the Jurassic not a single true Angiosperm is found
in the geological record.
This is a broad manifestation of evolution, but it is not quite an
accurate statement, and its inexactness still more strongly confirms the
theory of evolution. Though the Primary Era was predominantly the age of
Cryptogams, we saw that a very large number of seed-bearing plants, with
very mixed characters, appeared before its close. It thus prepares the
way for the cycads and conifers and ginkgoes of the Mesozoic, which
we may conceive as evolved from one or other branch of the mixed
Carboniferous vegetation. We next find that the Mesozoic is by no means
purely an age of Gymnosperms. I do not mean merely that the Angiosperms
appear in force before its close, and were probably evolved much
earlier. The fact is that the Gymnosperms of the Mesozoic are often of
a curiously mixed character, and well illustrate the transition to the
Angiosperms, though they may not be their actual ancestors. This will be
clearer if we glance in succession at the various types of plant which
adorned and enriched the Jurassic world.
The European or American landscape--indeed, the aspect of the earth
generally, for there are no pronounced zones of climate--is still
utterly different from any that we know to-day. No grass carpets the
plains; none of the flowers or trees with which we are familiar, except
conifers, are found in any region. Ferns grow in great abundance,
and have now reached many of the forms with which we are acquainted.
Thickets of bracken spread over the plains; clumps of Royal ferns and
Hartstongues spring up in moister parts. The trees are conifers, cycads,
and trees akin to the ginkgo, or Maidenhair Tree, of modern Japan.
Cypresses, yews, firs, and araucarias (the Monkey Puzzle group) grow
everywhere, though the species are more primitive than those of today.
The broad, fan-like leaves and plum-like fruit of the ginkgoales, of
which the temple-gardens of Japan have religiously preserved a solitary
descendant, are found in the most distant regions. But the most frequent
and characteristic tree of the Jurassic landscape is the cycad.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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