56 MESSRS. NEWELL ARBER AND J. PARKIN ON 
was not a correct conclusion, it was hardly to be expected that a closer 
approximation to the truth would then have been possible. 
Carruthers *, discussing ће cone of Bennettites in relation to those of the 
living Cycadez, states that * the points of difference are more obvious than 
those in which they agree... .. The fossil is truly gymnospermous, the pollen 
having access to the embryo-sac through the tubular openings in the covering 
of the seed, and not through a style developed from an investing carpellary 
organ. The most remarkable difference is to be found in the compound fruit 
of the fossil. . . . .. It must be considered to hold the same relation to the 
other Cyeadez that Tazus, with its succulent, cup-shaped pericarp, does to 
the cone-bearing Coniferze." 
Saporta f regarded the fructification of Williamsonia as the fruit of a 
primitive Monocotyledon, and more especially as belonging to a member of the 
Pandanacez. The same author ў, in conjunction with Marion, recognised in 
the interseminal scales the homologues of carpels, and concluded that the 
inflorescence is similar to a spadix, bearing unisexual flowers, found in 
certain Monocotyledons. 
Solms- Laubach $, when discussing the fructification of — Bennettites 
Gibsonianus, Carruth., in 1890, states that its closest affinities among living 
plants are with the Cycadeæ, though he is not altogether disinclined to accept 
Saporta’s argument that the genus may be found to show analogies in the 
direction of the Angiosperms. The same author also outlines three hypotheses 
as to the homologies of the female portion of the strobilus. Either the seed- 
pedicels and interseminal scales are all carpels, the one fertile and the other 
sterile; or the scales are of the nature of shoots without leaves, and the pedicels 
shoots ending in a flower reduced to a single ovule ; or, again, the scales are 
leaves subtending uniovulate shoots. On the whole he inclines to the last of 
these interpretations. 
Similarly, Lignier ||, in describing the structure of B. Morierei, Sap. & Mar., 
in 1894, concluded that, so far as the female cone is concerned, it is of 
the nature of an inflorescence, the bracts and interseminal scales being the 
leaves of the main axis, the seed-pedicels being fertile leaves which belong 
to unifoliate buds of a higher order. He regards the group as descended 
from ancestors common to the Суса4ею, but not from the Cycads them- 
selves, and further suggests that eventually the Bennettiteze and Cordaitales 
may be found to have a greater affinity than is at present supposed. 
In March 1899, Wieland Ч described, for the first time, the male flower of 
Bennettites (Cycadeoidea) ingens, Ward, and showed that it differed entirely 
from the male cones of the living Cycads. However, as the author ** sub- 
* Carruthers (1870) p. 698. T Saporta (1875) p. 56. 
] Saporta & Marion (1881) p. 1187 ; Saporta (1891) p. 88. 
$ Solms-Laubach (1890) pp. 830, 832, 843. || Lignier (1894) рр. 69 & 73. 
$ Wieland (1899) p. 294, ** Wieland (1901 and 1906). 
