494 DR. MARIE STOPES ON BENNETTITES SCOTTII, 
7 
Summa ny. 
A specimen eut into pieces and given a variety of numbers in the British 
Museum (Natural History) when pieced together and cut into serial sections 
proved to be a very small Bennettites showing well preserved structure. 
Though externally the specimen was much the shape and size of a William- 
sonia “ fruit,” it is a young stem with foliage still folded in the bud. 
Though the stem was independent, there is evidence suggestive of the idea 
that this baby had originated as a “sproutling” and not a seedling. In 
connection with this a curious central cirele of tissue in the pith of the 
lowest section seems best interpreted as a separation layer. 
The vascular axis is very short and thick for its size, and is oval, though 
apparently unerushed. 
The leaves, with the pinnze folded in place, are fairly well petrified, and 
are the first specimens of a European Bennettites preserved with internal 
petrifaction of its attached leaves. The leaf-anatomy shows a well marked 
differentiation between upper and lower leaf-surface, a series of parallel 
vascular bundles with centripetal xylem, with specialised sheaths and supports 
of upper and lower sclerenchyma. 
A noticeable feature of many of the leaflets is the great mass of hairs, 
with thick walls, forming a weft of tissue-like substance, in places as thick 
as the leaf itself. It is now suggested that the area described by Wieland 
as lower sclerenchyma in his American foliage was probably formed by à 
corresponding hair- weft, and that his single row of * transfusion cells” was 
actually the lower epidermis. 
There are three types of ramenta in this new species: the thick-walled, 
large-celled, pseudo-leaf-base forming ramenta ; the small-celled, interstitial 
ramenta ; and the hairs, composed of chains of single cells, on the lower 
leaf-surface. 
The leaf-bases are still covered by the original epidermis with its thick 
cuticle, save where here and there a few cells are giving rise to an epidermal 
cork eambium. 
The plant appears to be far too young to bear fruetifieations. The speci- 
men is much the smallest and youngest member of the group of Bennettitales 
so far known. 
It is named B. Scotti in honour of Dr. D. H. Scott, F.R.S. 
My thanks are due to Dr. Smith Woodward, F.R.S., Keeper of the 
Geological Department, British Museum (Nat. Hist.) for his kindness in 
acceding to my request to have sections cut of the specimen; and to 
Dr. D. H. Scott, F.R.S., and Prof. Oliver, F.R.S., for the benefit of dis- 
cussing the specimen. Also to the Government Grant Committee of the 
Royal Society for defraying the cost of necessary photographs, 
