Now the interesting point about these Ferns is that they were not vastly different, in many ways, from the species which exist on the earth at the present time. Of course certain types, of which we have living examples, were more fully represented than is the case nowadays; on the other hand, some of our most widely distributed families seem to have been at rather a low stage in their history. As well, the remains evidence a large number of very simple species, which perhaps give us an idea of what the original Ferns were like. But on the whole there is nothing to show that our living Ferns are any more developed than the highest types which grew in the coal forests. In these far-away times there were Tree Ferns; but so there are, of course, at the present time.
The early botanists who strove to prove that Ferns were, so to speak, the last development before the Flowering Plants were not, perhaps, very far from the truth. It has been seen that during the period when the coal deposits were being formed there flourished side by side races of true Ferns and Fern-like plants which bore seeds--the Pteridosperms. The point has also been suggested that in all probability these two groups of plants had a common origin. With the coming of later times (the Cretaceous and Jurassic periods) there appeared the Bennettiteæ. These remarkable plants seem to have entirely taken the place of the Pteridosperms, and were an enormous advance towards the Flowering Plants of the present day. Only recently have the Bennettiteæ been properly described and their interesting features fully understood. We have a few representatives of this important group in the Cycads, plants bearing a superficial resemblance to Palms, but actually very different in all other ways. By the manner in which the reproductive organs are produced, and the way in which the scheme is carried out, these Bennettiteæ appear to be a half-way house between the cryptogams and the advanced flowering plants. The stamens bearing the pollen are produced on the fronds very much like the sporangia of Ferns. On the other hand, the seed-bearing structures are collected together into a sort of pistil. This was borne at the tip of the branches and ended their growth, just as happens in the case of Flowering Plants. For some reason which we cannot understand these Bennettiteæ seem to have fallen back in the race for supremacy, for the group is but poorly represented in our modern Cycads and a few allied plants. In all the world there are perhaps not more than about a dozen species, the sole survivors of a race which at one time dominated the world. There seems every reason for thinking that the Flowering Plants arose as an offshoot of the Bennettiteæ, and in some way secured an advantage which enabled them to arrive at their present position.