418 MR. A. C. SEWARD ON A NEW SPECIES OF CONIFER, 
of Pinites, and includes under that name leaves, cones, and fossil 
wood, possessing such characters as are found in Pinus, Abies, 
Lariz, and other members of the Abzetinew. More recently, 
Kraus proposed the name Pityorylon for fossil wood with the 
following type and structure :—‘“ Lignum stratis concentricis 
angustis latioribusque, cellulis prosenchymatosis porosis, poris 
magnis, rotundis, uni vel pluriserialibus, oppositis ; cellulis 
ductibusque resiniferis hand raris; radiis medullaribus com- 
positis ductumque resiniferum includentibus vel simplicibus, 
cellule eorum haud raro biformes.”* The custom of employing 
a special terminology for mineralized fossil wood has been 
followed by several writers, and has much to recommend it. 
The specimen described in the present communication may 
possibly be generically identical with the recent Pinus, but 
having only a fragment of wood before us, and no evidence 
as to the leaves or cones, it would be unwise to adopt the 
name Pinus in the restricted sense of the existing genus. 
Probably the most convenient course to follow is to make use 
of the fairly comprehensive genus Pinites, with the addition of 
Kraus’s term Pityoxylon. 
In the recent genus Pinus, the horizontal tracheids accom- 
panying the medullary rays, with their characteristic irregular 
ingrowths, afford a distinguishing feature; + these have not 
been detected in the present species. Other characters, 
associated with the existing representatives of the genus, 
such as the arrangement of the bordered pits, the vertical 
and horizontal resin ducts, and the distinctly marked rings 
of growth, are clearly seen in the Wealden fossil. 
The oldest species of fossil wood hitherto described to which 
the genus Pinites may reasonably be applied, is that described by 
Goppert and Stenzel from the Coal-Measures of Waldenburg, in 
Silesia, under the name of P. Conwentzianus.t Schenk § includes 
this species in Kraus’s genus Pityoxylon. Tt is interesting to 
note, as Conwentz has pointed ont, that bordered pits occur in 
considerable numbers on the tangential walls of the tracheids 
* Schimper, ‘ Trait. Pal. Vég.,’ vol. ii. p. 377. 
+ Moller, N. J. C. ‘ Erliut. Text —Atlas der Holzstructur,’ 1888, p. 51. 
t Géppert and Stenzel, “ Nachtriige zur Kenntniss der Coniferenhélzer der 
Paleozoischen Formationen” (in ‘ Abhand. K. Preuss. Akad. Wiss.,’ Berlin, 
1887), p. 54, pls. 11, 12. 
§ ‘Zittel’s Handbuch,’ vol. ii. p. 876. Solms-Laubach (‘ Fossil Botany,’ 
Pp. 83) regards this species as a doubtful example of Pinites. 
