BY D. H. SCOTT F.R.S.

President of the Linnean Society.

THERE are several points of view from which the subject of the
present essay may be regarded. We may consider the fossil record
of plants in its bearing: I. on the truth of the doctrine of Evolution;
II. on Phylogeny, or the course of Evolution; III. on the theory of
Natural Selection. The remarks which follow, illustrating certain
aspects only of an extensive subject, may conveniently be grouped
under these three headings.

When The Origin of Species was written, it was necessary to
show that the Geological Record was favourable to, or at least
consistent with, the Theory of Descent. The point is argued, closely
and fully, in Chapter X. "On the Imperfection of the Geological
Record," and Chapter XI. "On the Geological Succession of Organic
Beings"; there is, however, little about plants in these chapters.
At the present time the truth of Evolution is no longer seriously
disputed, though there are writers, like Reinke, who insist, and
rightly so, that the doctrine is still only a belief, rather than an
established fact of science ¹. Evidently, then, however little the
Theory of Descent may be questioned in our own day, it is desirable
to assure ourselves how the case stands, and in particular how far the
evidence from fossil plants has grown stronger with time.

As regards direct evidence for the derivation of one species from
another, there has probably been little advance since Darwin wrote,
at least so we must infer from the emphasis laid on the discontinuity
of successive fossil species by great systematic authorities like
Grand'Eury and Zeiller in their most recent writings. We must
either adopt the mutationist views of those authors (referred to in

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