a 







XL] MALE FLOWERS 51 



It has been suggested that the seed-bearing shoots, which 

 Carruthers named Beania, from Jurassic beds on the Yorkshire 

 coast may have belonged to a member of the Ginkgoales, but it is 

 at least equally probable that Beania is Cycadean and possibly 

 the seed-bearing axis of Nilssonia. The genus is described in 

 Ch. xxxviii 1 . It is possible that specimens from Cretaceous and 

 Jurassic rocks regarded by Heer as male flowers of Ginkgoites 

 sibirica and other species, also specimens described by him as 

 Antholithus Schmidtianm 2 , may be fertile shoots, which bore 

 seeds and not microsporangia, belonging to Ginkgoites or some 

 other member of the Ginkgoales: the nature of these fossils is, 

 however, uncertain and they are described under the generic 

 name Stenorachis. 



a. Male Flowers. 



As with seeds so also with regard to the microsporophylls 

 our information is scanty and indecisive. Nathorst 3 first suggested 

 that some small carbonised bodies from Yorkshire Jurassic beds 

 figured by Phillips 4 as 'unknown leaves' are probably fragments 

 of male flowers of some species of Ginkgoites. The specimen of 

 hich Phillips figured a small portion is shown in fig. 654, B ; it 

 onsists of a slender axis with several short and partially broken 

 teral branches bearing terminal groups of oblong bodies 4 mm. 

 ong and 1 mm. wide, 2 4 in each group : these suggest comparison 

 ith pollen-sacs with longitudinal dehiscence, and the habit of the 

 whole fertile shoot agrees with that of a male flower of Ginkgo 

 biloba. In the recent species the microsporangia are only about 

 mm. long, but in the occurrence of two to four microsporangia 

 on a single microsporophyll the resemblance between the fossil 

 and recent form is fairly close 5 . Unfortunately it has not been 

 ossible to make any preparations of the cuticularised remains 

 showing micro spores, and while the probability is that the oblong 

 bodies are microsporangia it is not impossible that they are small 

 eds. A collection of identical bodies showing what appears to 

 e a median line of dehiscence is illustrated in Part I of The Jurassic 

 'lora of Yorkshire 6 . A larger specimen is shown in fig. 654, A; 



1 Vol. in. p. 502. 2 Heer (82) A. p. 21, PL ix. 



3 Nathorst (80) A. p. 75. 4 Phillips (29) A. ; (75) A. PL vn. fig. 23. 



5 See page 5. 6 Seward (00) B. p. 260, fig. 45. 



42 



