370 PLANT-REMAINS OF DOUBTFUL AFFINITY, ETC. 



by Williamson l and Carruthers 2 with leaves and stems of Zamia gigas has 

 been already stated on p. 91. O. Feistmantel 3 among more recent authors 

 has adhered to this view, while Nathorst 4 and Saporta and Marion 5 rightly 

 consider that the grounds on which it rests are insufficient. These remains 

 were first discovered in the Lower Oolites of Whitby. The greater part 

 of the specimens obtained from that locality have found their way along 

 with the Yates collection into the Paris Museum, which may in conse- 

 quence possess as many of them as all the English collections taken 

 together. Various specimens were next found in the Upper Gondwanas 

 of India and at different levels in them ; in the Rajmahal, Cutch, and 

 Jabalpur beds (Jurassic). A full description of these remains^vill be found 

 in O. Feistmantel. Another species, Williamsonia Forchhammeri, Nath. 

 comes from the Jurassic formation of Bornholm, and other forms have 

 recently been found in France, W. pictaviensis, Sap. et Mar., for example, 

 in the Oxford ian beds in the neighbourhood of Poitiers. According to 

 Saporta and Marion the type goes still further back ; these authors state 

 that they have remains of it, at present unpublished, from the infra-Liassic 

 beds of Hettange (Angulatae beds). They also refer to it a fossil, which 

 resembles it but is still doubtful, from the Rhaetic beds of Bayreuth ; this 

 form will be found mentioned and figured in F. Braun under the name of 

 Weltrichia mirabilis, but Schenk 7 , strange to say, has left it unnoticed. 

 The determination has gained probability from the recent discovery of an 

 apparently well-ascertained species, Williamsonia angustifolia 8 in the 

 Rhaetic beds of Hor in Schonen. The best-known species is the 

 large W. gigas, Carr. from Whitby. Specimens in the ordinary state of 

 preservation show a wreath of numerous broadly lanceolate leaves, lying 

 many deep on one another and curved or connivent into the shape of a 

 bell or dome, and occurring as impressions with a thin rind of coal in the 

 brownish red sandstone of Whitby. The objects found are either moulds 

 of the outer side of the bells, or more commonly the matter which filled 

 the bells in the form of rounded nodules bearing on their surface the 

 impressions of the leaves. In the latter case in the place where the axis 

 must have been and between the leaf-bases there is a hollow space, which 

 under favourable circumstances is prolonged into the interior of the wreath 

 of leaves, and there answers to the space originally occupied by the organs 

 of fructification. A cast has been found in these specimens in a very few 

 instances, corresponding in form to the casts which are artificially obtained. 

 This cast, figured by Williamson 9 from nature, has the form of a flask 

 with a protuberant body which passes gradually into a narrow neck with 



1 Williamson (10). * Carruthers (4). 3 O. Feistmantel (1), II. * Nathorst (8). 



5 Saporta et Marion (2), p. 234. F. Braun (1), t. a. 1 Schenk (3). 8 Nathorst (8), 



t. 8, ff. 8-10. Williamson (10), t. 52, .-4 and t. 53, ff. 6-8. 



