372 PLANT-REMAINS OF DOUBTFUL AFFINITY, ETC. 



involucre, the leaves of which are spread out by pressure into a stellate 

 form, there lies on a surface of gray schist an irregular shred of tissue formed 

 entirely of small cylinders placed palisade-fashion side by side, and showing 

 therefore crowded polygonal facets on its surface. This fragment in their 

 opinion represents a portion of a rolled up spadix beset with peripheral 

 organs. They also figure 1 a very fine and well-preserved fragment petrified in 

 carbonate of iron and found by Moriere in the Oxfordian strata of the Vaches 

 Noires in Normandy, which shows a spadix still in part surrounded by in- 

 volucral leaves and with its surface actually presenting the same faceted 

 appearance. The facets, which answer to small angularly pyramidal pro- 

 minences, are arranged with regularity in a circle or rosette around a central 

 deep-lying point. A layer of seeds lying beneath the surface is seen on the 

 longitudinal fracture, and the substance of the spadix underneath the seeds 

 is composed of stout parallel fibres. That this object is a fructification is 

 unquestionable on account of the seeds, and its resemblance to the spadix, 

 described above on p. 95, as belonging to the genus Bennettites, is obvious ; 

 its connection with Williamsonia is only concluded from the presence of the 

 peripheral lanceolate involucral leaves, but we have seen that these occur in 

 a similar manner in Bennettites. I have no doubt therefore that this speci- 

 men belongs to Bennettites, but in saying this I have no intention of pre- 

 judging the question of its relation to Williamsonia ; for it is still possible 

 that further discoveries may show that the fructifications of Bennettites and 

 Williamsonia both belong to similar stems resembling the stems of Cycadeae, 

 and confirm the opinion of Williamson and Carruthers. But until the truth 

 of these conjectures is ascertained, we must be content to leave the relation- 

 ship of Williamsonia undetermined. The improbability of F. Braun's and 

 Nathorst's ideas, who would place them, as they would Bennettites, with 

 Balanophoreae or Rafflesiaceae is patent, and needs no prolonged dis- 

 cussion. 



1 Saporta et Marion (2), p. 244. 



