On some Observations on Palæobotany in Goebel's “Outlines of Classification and Special Morphology of Plants”

Abstract

THE few modern authors of botanical text-books who have ventured to summarise recent palæobotanical researches have achieved but moderate success. These authors have too little knowledge of the rapid progress of the study of fossil plants during the last few years to make success possible; hence, their summaries, if not absolutely inaccurate, are usually misleading. So long as these errors are confined to works published in Continental languages, British palæobotanists need not take the trouble to correct them. But the case is altered when English translations of these books appear amongst us. Palæobotany has nowhere made greater progress during the last few years than with ourselves. Many errors have been corrected, and new truths, results of careful and prolonged investigations, have taken their place. With the more important of these new discoveries many of our younger students of geology are now familiar. It is desirable that what they have been taught should not be contradicted by the utterances of authors ignorant of the subjects upon which they venture to express an opinion.