BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 31 



variably torn to shreds by the wind. In flowers adapted to 

 insects various mechanical contrivances enable the calyx and 

 corolla, or the stamens, to support the insect, while others enable 

 it to carry the pollen away. The calyx multiplies its ribs and 

 the corolla expands anteriorly, while the stamens become levers, 

 &c. Fruits are often subject to strains as in bursting, but if a 

 pear hang vertically from an oblique stalk, there is a tendency to 

 tear it away. Nature then develops a hump at the base which 

 counteracts the resultant of the two other forces. The whole of 

 the purposeful structures to secure strength, &c, to resist any 

 injurious strains is the tissue of the directivity of life. 



At the same meeting Miss Nellie Bancroft contributed a paper 

 "On some Indian Jurassic Gymnosperms." The fossil plants 

 under consideration are of Liassic age, and come from Amrapara 

 in the Eajmahal Hills in Bengal. The types represented are 

 Gymnospermous, and include examples of B r achy phy Hum Mam- 

 millare, Benstedtia, coniferous wood, small bilateral seeds, and 

 Cycadean stems, leaves and fructifications. With regard to the 

 Cycadophyte remains, stems and fructifications of Williamsonian 

 type are associated with foliage which may be considered as 

 identical with the English fronds Williamsonia Pecten. Portions 

 of Dictyozamites falcatus fronds are also present. There are, 

 however, no indications of actual attachment of leaves or 

 fructifications with the stems. The vegetative organs show a 

 combination of recent and fossil Cycadean characters. Exter- 

 nally the stems resemble those of recent "armoured" Cycads, the 

 leaf-bases being separated by ramental hairs, instead of the 

 scales usually found in the fossil forms. The single compact 

 woody zone of the Indian specimens, with its narrow medullary 

 rays, is a characteristic feature of the fossil stems, differing 

 considerably from the looser structure of recent Cycadean wood, 

 formed in certain cases from successive cambiums. The Indian 

 wood, however, shows multiseriately-pitted tracheides like those 

 of recent Cycads, instead of the scalariform type usually occurr- 

 ing in the fossil stems. Like these, the parenchymatous ground- 

 tissue has numerous secretory sacs rather than the gum-canals 

 of the living forms. The " closed " arrangement of the vascular 

 bundles of the leaf-bases and rachises is similar to that seen in 

 the American fossil Cycads, as contrasted with the open or 

 omega type of arrangement in most recent genera. Both types 

 of frond amongst the Indian material are Cycadean in general 

 plan, agreeing with such living forms as some of the Zamias 

 which show palisade mesophyll, in the possession of which there 

 is also agreement with Cycadeoidea ingens. In the structure of 

 the xylem and medullary rays, and of the leaf-bases with their 

 ramental hairs, the Indian stems are exactly similar to the axis 

 of Prof. Seward's Scottish Williamsonia fructification. The 

 Williamsonian fructification amongst the Indian types seems to 

 agree, so far as evidence is available, in general characters and 

 arrangement of parts with other Williamsonian and Bennettitean 

 forms. The structural evidence obtained, in conjunction with 



