260 



GINKGO. 



In 1829 Phillips figured some small leaf -like bodies as "unknown 

 leaves " ; the original specimen, which is in the Cambridge Museum, 

 reveals the identity of these bodies with some more perfectly pre- 

 served fossils in the Leckenby Collection, British Museum, and 

 elsewhere, which "Nathorst regarded as pollen - sacs probably 

 belonging to Ginkgo digitata. On the label attached to Phillips' 

 figured specimen Bean has written the following note from 

 Brongniart: "Appears to be a very curious plant, but the 

 specimen is incomplete, so that I cannot form any opinion about 

 it. 1838." On another specimen Nathorst wrote : " Male flowers 

 of Ginkgo digitata" A more perfect specimen in the Leckenby 

 Collection, 1 to which Nathorst has referred in his notes on Jurassic 

 plants in English Museums, shows a portion of a central axis from 



Fig. 45. Pollen-sacs of Ginkgo (? G. digitata). No. 39,320. ( x 3.) 



which arc given off at right angles a few short and slender filaments, 

 bearing elliptical bodies (pollen-sacs), either two or three together 

 at their tips; some of them appear to be still in their original 

 position, while others have fallen off the filaments. This fragment 

 agrees with the male flowers of G. biloba, as also with the numerous 

 and better preserved male flowers figured by Heer from Siberia and 

 elsewhere, and leaves no doubt that Phillips' "unknown leaves" 

 are pollen-sacs of Ginkgo. In most cases Heer simply refers to his 

 specimens as male flowers of Ginkgo, and connects them with 

 G. Sibirica, Heer, and other species; but some of the later examples 

 which he describes are spoken of as species of Antholithus. We 

 might refer the specimens of male flowers to such a genus as 



1 For a figure of this specimen, vide Seward & Gowau (00), pi. ix. fig. 28. 



