76 DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE 



Cretaceous period. We, therefore, desire to have it understood 

 that the facts of internal structure, and the conclusions in regard 

 to botanical relationships which are next described and discussed, 

 are referable only to the species as it occurs in the Cretaceous 

 deposits at Kreischerville or their equivalents elsewhere." 

 Nevertheless, in spite of this statement, and in spite of the fact 

 that such small-leaved conifer-twigs are practically unidentifi- 

 able from externals alone, they re-name Heer's species and 

 proceed to state at the conclusion of their account : " In the 

 case of the remains commonly called Sequoia J{eichenbachi we 

 have accordingly to do, not with a species belonging to the 

 modern genus Sequoia, but with one of araucarineous affinities." 



With our small twig, which in all its anatomical features is u 

 true Sequoia, Hollick & Jeffrey's specimens have therefore no 

 affinity; but the structure of our leafy twig, which shows in- 

 dubitably that Sequoia was living already in the Lower 

 Cretaceous, makes it more than likely that ninny of the speci- 

 mens included by Hecr and others in his Sequoia IteicJtenbuchi, 

 and removed to the Araucarians by Hollick & Jeffrey, were 

 really true Sequoias as Hecr supposed. 



Woods of Sequoia and other Taxodinea? have not been 

 recognised in the British deposit, but I think it is not impossible 

 that some of the species temporarily described under the broad 

 pseudo-generic names may belong to Sequoias or allied forms. 

 Penhallow (1890) pointed out that in their wood-structure 

 Taxodium and Sequoia approach each other closely, but are 

 separable, for " in Tavodium the pits [on the lateral walls of the 

 rays] are round and the orifice is narrowly oblong, the border 

 therefore broad ; while in Sequoia the pits are distinctly oval or 

 elliptical and the orifice broadly oblong, the border thus becoming 

 much narrower, and sometimes even obscure, and in petrifactions 

 tending certainly to become very obscure and faint, so thai 

 the wood could not but be put in the wide ' genus ' Cupres- 

 rinoxylon" 



The older writers did not attempt to separate the two genera 

 Taxodmm and Sequoia, but Gothan (1905) stated that the 

 former is distinguished from the latter by the " auffallend 

 starke Yerdickung der Holzparenchymquerwande, die man im 

 Tangentialschniit betrachtet." However, this point was 



