﻿DISCOVERIES AND COLLECTIONS. 1 5 



As yet, however, nothing was positively known as to the true nature of the 

 inflorescence of any of the fossil cycadean trunks ; nor was any such knowledge 

 gained for the next thirty years. The earlier of the specimens from the Isle of 

 Wight, now the most important European cycad locality known, received but brief 

 notice. That by Robert Brown should be cited. In 1851 he exhibited before the 

 Linnean Society of London a series of recent and fossil cycads, among them a trunk 

 from the Isle of Wight, which he called Cycadites Saxbyanus. Regarding this he 

 said (Proceedings of 185 1, p. 130): 



"All the specimens of Cycadites hitherto found in the Isle of Wight agree in having 

 an elliptical outline, unaccompanied by any inequality in the woody ellipsis, and also 

 having a bud in the axilla of each leaf; in these respects differing from the Cycadites 

 of the Isle of Portland, and from all the recent species of the Cycadeae with which we 

 are acquainted, which have a circular outline and scattered buds." 



It is thus plain that in their general anatomy and vegetative characters no 

 great and fundamental difference from living forms had at this time been recognized 

 in any of these fossils, if we except their copious development of fern-like rameutum, 

 so unlike the cycads of to-day. In short, the peculiar character of fructification in 

 the Cycadeoideae, so all-important to our conceptions of plant evolution, had not 

 as yet been discovered, and was scarcely even suspected before the discoveries of 

 Williamson and Carruthers in 1868. On June 4 of that year Professor William- 

 son read his noteworthy contribution on Zamia gigas (202). The specimens he 

 described were the result of thirty years of collecting by various persons, including 

 himself and his father, who had discovered the Hawkser locality on the Yorkshire 

 coast in 1832. These fossils were obtained from the "lower sandstone" of 

 Phillips, as exposed in the debris along the cliffs of Hawkser and Runswick, 

 and consisted in the closely associated imprints of leaves and casts of trunks, and 

 of fruits of new and at that time highly problematical character. On the basis of 

 these, Williamson prepared a restoration which at once became the subject of con- 

 troversy, and remained such for thirty years, until the discovery by the writer of 

 the fructification and foliage of the Black Hills trunks set at rest the doubts con- 

 cerning it. Professor Williamson's interpretations, while in part erroneous, are of 

 extraordinary interest; and the fact that his figures and restorations are in nowise 

 fanciful, but constitute a contribution of great intrinsic value, must be again referred 

 to later in this volume. 



On June 18, 1868, two weeks after the announcement of the discoveries of 

 Williamson, William Carruthers read his highly important memoir on the fossil 

 cycadean stems from the secondary rocks of Britain (24). In this are described 

 some of the beautiful silicified trunks from the Lower Greensand of Luccomb Chine, 

 in the Isle of Wight. On these Carruthers found wonderfully preserved, bract- 

 surrounded, ovulate strobili interspspersed laterally between the persistent leaf bases. 

 These fructifications he studied in thin sections, the first prepared from fossil 

 cycads. The more important details in their entirely unique structures were clearlv 

 described, and the new genus and species Bennettites Gibsonianus was proposed. 

 It became obvious that a lively hope for the discover}' of further material might 

 be entertained, and that this must be of the highest botanical interest when 



