Abstract
DURING this last summer and autumn I have seized several opportunities of continuing my examination of the Bagshot Beds of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, some of the results of which I think may interest your readers. This series is, as is now well known, of great importance from the fact of its being almost the only series from the tertiaries whose absolute relative geological age is positively known, it being under and overlapped on the mainland by the London clay and Bracklesham beds respectively, whilst in the Isle of Wight, occurring in a complete series of eocene strata, upheaved vertically, its true position is even still more plainly seen. It is further important as exhibiting in gradual sequence the change from an upland to a swamp flora, and represents very fairly the local flora of a long period and of an entire continent that has passed away. Of the richness and completeness of the flora an idea may be formed from the fact that I can reckon in my own collection not less than 10,000 selected specimens, many of large size, exclusive of twice that number which I have discarded, whilst there are also local collections at Bournemouth, a splendid series in the Cambridge Museum, and a scarcely less important one from Alum Bay, at the British Museum. But perhaps the most valuable discovery—to the botanist, at all events—is that of various beds containing well-preserved fruits above the horizon of the leaf-patches, identifiable with fruits from Sheppey which are found in the London clay, and therefore below the leaves. We thus appear to have at Bournemouth the leaves of trees which may be descended from those whose fruits are imbedded at Sheppey. The assistance, it will be readily seen, of the Sheppey fruits will be of the greatest value in determining the genera of the Bournemouth leaves and flowers. At Bournemouth about sixteen kinds of fruit may be collected in the seed-beds just mentioned, including Nipadites, Hightea, Cucumites, and Petrophiloides, quite sufficient to establish the fact that no break took place in the succession of the London clay flora.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
GARDNER, J. On the Eocene Flora of Bournemouth . Nature 17, 47–48 (1877). https://doi.org/10.1038/017047a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/017047a0