The flowering or "Phanerogamous" plants, which form the bulk
of our existing vegetation, are hardly known, with certainty,
to have existed at all in the Carboniferous era, except as
represented by trees related to the existing Pines and Firs,
and possibly by the Cycads or "false palms."[18] Amongst the
"Cryptogams," there is no more striking or beautiful group of
Carboniferous plants than the _Ferns_. Remains of these are found
all through the Carboniferous, but in exceptional numbers in
the Coal-measures, and include both herbaceous forms like the
majority of existing species, and arborescent forms resembling
the living Tree-ferns of New Zealand. Amongst the latter, together
with some new types, are examples of the genera _Psaronius_ and
_Caulopteris_, both of which date from the Devonian. The simply
herbaceous ferns are extremely numerous, and belong to such
widely-distributed and largely-represented genera as _Neuropteris,
Odontopteris_ (fig. 108), _Alethopteris, Pecopteris, Sphenopteris,
Hymenophyllites_, &c.
[Footnote 18: Whilst the vegetation of the Coal-period was mainly
a terrestrial one, aquatic plants are not unknown. Sea-weeds
(such as the _Spirophyton cauda-Galli_) are common in some of
the marine strata; whilst coal, according to the researches of
the Abbe Castracane, is asserted commonly to contain the siliceous
envelopes of Diatoms.
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