76 CONIFERAE. 



Walchia l . In the most common species, W. piniformis, Sternb., the branch- 

 systems, which show numerous ramifications disposed in two lines and are 

 often found in actual connection, have thoroughly the habit of Araucaria 

 excelsa, and are studded all round with short falcate or hooked leaves 

 arranged in spirals. Other branches, which may however possibly belong 

 to the same species, have no leaves with hooked extremities, while others 

 again, which are properly regarded as belonging to a distinct species, W. 

 filiciformis, Sternb., have their leaves less closely set and not covering the 

 branch as with scales. The individual leaves, strongly hooked and having 

 a stout almost conical cushion, stand out at nearly a right angle from the 

 branch. Goppert 2 says that the leaves have several nerves, but as he appeals 

 only to the striation as seen on the surface from which we cannot conclude 

 directly as to the course of the nerves, we must not attach any importance 

 to the statement. All these branches are thus united under Walchia solely 

 from their external appearance, and it is quite possible that they belonged 

 to very different genera ; and we begin to suspect that it was so, when we 

 consider the different organs of fructification which authors have assigned 

 to this genus. Bergeron 3 , for instance, has figured a branch of Walchia 

 from the schists of Lodeve with terminal cylindrical cones on the lowest of 

 its pinnate lateral ramifications, and as the scales have dropped from one of 

 the cones, the axis only remains showing the points of attachment. The 

 scales in these cones are imbricate and spirally arranged, and each scale is 

 lanceolate at the apex ; the structural details are not known. Weiss 4 has 

 made us acquainted with a somewhat less perfect fragment of the same 

 kind ; the unattached cones had been before described by different writers, 

 Goppert 5 for example and Schimper 6 . Bergeron's specimen, like a similar 

 one from Lodeve in my possession, bears its well-developed cones on long 

 branches, and between them other cones on short shoots in a younger state. 

 But when he concludes from this that the cone-bearing branches were 

 developed later, after the vegetative branches, perhaps from resting buds, 

 we must object that young cones may cease to develope at an early age, and 

 that such imperfect growths are often found in our living species on weakly 

 shoots which were developed at the same time with the rest. 



On the other hand, Grand' Eury 7 has described and figured a branch 

 of Walchia from the bituminous schists of Autun, in which the lower of two 

 perfectly preserved lateral branches bears ovoid carpoliths in the axils of 

 its leaves, while the upper has in the same situation small closed buds com- 

 posed of many not clearly defined leaves. The former objects he considers 

 to be the seeds, the latter the male flowers of the plant, which according to 

 the foliation would be referred without hesitation to Walchia. His brief 



1 Sternberg, Graf von (1). * Goppert (3), p. 238. 3 Bergeron (1). * Weiss (1), t. 17. 

 Goppert (3). Schimper (1), t. 73. 7 Grand' Eury (1), p. 514. 



