406 EXPLANATION OF PLATES I. AND II. 



parenchyma, which, under the microscope, exhibits cells 

 similar to those of the rest of the leaf. 



Figures 2 and 3 are magnified, but the lithograph has 

 failed in truly representing the delicate undulations of the 

 lamina shewn in the fossil casts. 



No. 2. 



There are also eight or ten impressions of yew-like twigs 

 differing from the preceding, but none of them sufficiently 

 perfect to give precise characters. The leaves are narrower 

 than in the former species, though generally of the same 

 length : there is, however, more variety in this respect, the 

 same plant containing leaves of very different lengths. They 

 are narrowly lanceolate, tapering gradually from the base to 

 the tip, which is acute. Instead of terminating in rounded 

 lobes at the insertion of the footstalk, the leaf appears to 

 be decurrent, with the mid-rib continued into the decurrent 

 portion. The mid-rib is slender, but distinctly impressed 

 throughout the whole length of the leaf ; and the surface is 

 less evidently wrinkled transversely than in the first 

 species. The leaves are also more crowded and more erect, 

 with less of the distichous appearance, and a § arrange- 

 ment may be made out. Some of the sprigs are branched 

 like those of the common yew. This plant possesses the 

 characters of Taxites ■phlegethonteus of Unger (Plant, fossil, 

 p. 390.). Round dots also exist in the impressions of this 

 species, disposed as irregularly as in the preceding one, and 

 some are visible on the decurrent base of the leaf. Part of 

 these dots had in the original an elevated margin, a convex 

 disk, not so high as the margin, and a pointed central 

 point ; others have left an uniformly concave impression. 



Scattered through the matrix, and often in the close 

 vicinity of the Taxites twigs, but only in one instance 

 connected with them, there are impressions of a minute 

 fruit, such as would be made by the nut-like seed of yew, 

 deprived of its outer investment and of the coloured pulpy 



