440 Mr. W.N. Edwards ona small Bennettitalean 
LII.—On a small Bennettitalean Flower from the Wealden 
of Sussex. By W. N. EDWARDS. 
(Published by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.) 
[Plate XII. figs. 1-3.] 
THE present description of a Bennettitalean flower is based on 
a single specimen (V. 3175) in the Geological Department 
of ‘the British Museum (Natural History), forming part of 
the Rufford Collection, and registered as ‘* Wealden, near 
Hastings.”  It.is preserved .as a carbonized impression, 
consisting of a whorl of expanded bracts (regarded as micro- 
sporophylls) radiating from a rather prominent central region, 
the diameter of the flower being 16 mm. The sporophiylls 
were originally probably about ten to twelve in number, but 
the specimen is incomplete on one side, and only seven are 
seen clearly. Hach individual sporophyll is about 4-5 mm. 
in length, and varying in width from 2-4 mm., with a bluntly 
rounded or truncated tip. No structural details can be made 
out in the centre of the flower, which, however, is slightly 
protuberant, but there are some small round or oval swellings 
or markings at the bases of some of the sporophylls, and from 
some of these microspores have been obtained. The mass of 
spores shown on Pl, XII. fig. 3 (and several similar masses) 
were obtained in the region marked A of fig. 2, where there 
was a roundish or oval swelling—presumably a synangium— 
in a position which must apparently have been at or near the 
base of one of the broken-off sporophylls. At the point B 
(Pl. XII. fig. 2), where there is a distinct oval marking, a 
few microspores were also obtained, but none was found in 
the centre of the flower, nor any recognizable tissues. The 
spores are thin-walled and appear to be roughly spherical, 
with the usual triradiate marking of spores produced in 
tetrads. They are about ‘02 mm. in diameter. With the 
spores are a few fragments of tissue which might be pieces of 
synangium-wall. The distal ends of the sporophylls are too 
much carbonized to yield any cuticle. The specimen is not 
sufficiently well preserved to show the number and arrange- 
meut of the synangia, but they were apparently few—perhaps 
four at the base of each sporophyll, two on each side (ef. 
Pl. XII. fig. 2 at B). There do not appear to be any sterile 
bracts, though one must note the possibility that the synangia 
may have been borne on much reduced sporophylls round the 
central axis, aud that they became closely adpressed to the 
