Bibliographical Notices. 411 



a single large seed. (See Plate IV. fig. 2. a.) This, when broken, is usually 

 found to be more or less hollow. It is frequently not more than half a line 

 in thickness, but in the more perfect specimens it generally presents the 

 appearance of a close, granulated structure, in which small apertures, con- 

 taining carbonaceous matter, occasionally occur. These apertures possess 

 much uniformity, both in size and shape, and are of about the same dimen- 

 sions as the cells of the sarcocarp. This seed in one species, Nipadites 

 Parkinsonis, when in the most perfect state of preservation, was found to 

 consist of regular layers of cells, radiating from a spot situated near the mid- 

 dle of the seed, and apparently enclosing a central embryo." 



" One very fine fruit of a species of Pandanus in the possession of my 

 friend Mr. Ward, which is nearly four inches in length and two inches and 

 a half mean diameter, approaches very nearly in external form to the fossil 

 Nipadites Parkinsonis (Plate IV.), excepting that instead of being termi- 

 nated somewhat acutely, like the fossil alluded to, it is depressed at the apex, 

 and has eleven umbones, which are nearly equidistant from each other. 

 Upon making a transverse section of this fruit at about its middle, eleven 

 embryos were seen, arranged exactly in the manner indicated by the um- 

 bones at the apex of the fruit, and passing nearly in straight lines from that 

 point towards its base. The cells containing the embryos were about the 

 eighth of an inch in diameter." 



" But of all the fruits that I have yet seen, there are none which approach 

 so nearly to the fossil Nipadites as one of which my friend Mr. Ward has lately 

 received two specimens from Captain Roberts, of the ship Indemnity, who 

 met with them floating in the sea off* the island of Java, at the mouth of a 

 small river. These fruits my friend Mr. G. Loddiges recognized as the 

 seed-vessels of Nipafruticans." — " In their disposition and general character 

 they very nearly resemble the corresponding parts in several species of our 

 fossil Nipadites, especially Nipad. umbonatus." — " The epicarp is thin and 

 smooth, and furnished near the apex of the fruit with numerous puncta, 

 strongly resembling, both in form and extent, those occurring near the apex 

 of the fruit figured in Plate IV. fig. 3." 



The Nipa fruticans occurs, it is stated, "at the mouths of rivers 

 in the Philippines and Molucca islands, especially in Ternate, and 

 likewise in the Celebes. The tree grows in places within the in- 

 fluence of the tides. The fruits are often carried by the tide, and 

 thrown on shore in distant places ; and they take root where the soil 

 is suitable. If the habits of the plant which produced our fossil 

 fruits, as is justly observed by the Author, were similar to those of 

 the recent palm just described (and it is highly probable that such 

 was the case), it may account for their amazing abundance in the 

 London clay. 



" The resemblance existing between the whole of the species of Nipadites, 

 both as regards their external form and their internal structure, with those 

 of Nipa, is so close as to leave scarcely a doubt of their being members of 



