366 PINUS AND ARAUCARIA IN LIAS. 



tified in trees from the Carboniferous series of Britain.* That 

 of ordinary Pines occurs in wood from the Coal formation 

 of Nova Scotia and New Holland. 



The same ordinary structure of Pines predominates in the 

 fossil wood of the Lias at Whitby ; trunks of Araucarias 

 also are found there in the same Lias ; and branches, with 

 the leaves still adhering to them, in the Lias at Lyme Regis.f 



Professor Lindley justly remarks that it is an important 

 fact, that at the period of the deposite of the Lias, the vege- 

 tation was similar to that of the (Southern Hemisphere, not 

 alone in the single fact of the presence of Cycadese, but that 

 the Pines were also of the nature of species now found only 

 to the south of the Equator. Of the four recent species of 

 Araucaria at present known, one is found on the east coast 

 of New Holland, another in Norfolk Island, a third in Brazil, 

 and the fourth in Chili. (Foss. Flora, vol. ii. p. 2L) 



Whatever result may follow from future investigations, 

 our present information shows that the largest and most 

 perfect fossil Coniferae, which have been as yet sufficiently 

 examined from the Coal formation and the Lias, are refera- 

 ble either to the genus Pinus, or Araucaria,J and that both 



* A trunk of Araucarias forty-seven feet long was found in Cragleitli 

 Quarry near Edinburgh, 1830. (See Witham's Fossil Vegetables, 1833, 

 PI. 5.) Another, three feet in diameter, and more tlian twenty-four feet 

 long, was discovered in the same quarries in 1833. (See Nicol on Fossil 

 Couiferae, Edin. New Phil. Journal, Jan, 1834.) The longitudinal sec- 

 tions of this Tree exhibit, like the recent Araucaria excelsa, small poly- 

 gonal discs, arranged m double, and triple quadruple rows within the 

 longitudinal vessels; so also does a similar section from the Coal-field of 

 New-Holland. 



t See Lindley and Hutton's Fossil Flora, Pi. 88. A fossil cone referable 

 to Coniferse, and possibly to the genus Araucaria, from tlie Lias of Lyme 

 Eegis, is represented at Plate 89 of the same work. 



t Mr, Nicol states that in fossil woods from tlie Whitby Lias, when 

 concentric layers are distinctly marked on their transverse section, (PI. 

 56a, Fig. 2, a, a) the longitudinal sections have also the structure of 

 pinus (Pi. 56a, Fig. 1.;) but when the transverse section exhibits no dis- 

 tinct annual layers, (Pi. 56a, Fig. 4.) or has them but slightly indicated* 



