12 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JULY 
: gential autumnal pits, all features of difference from the vegetative 
wood structure of existing hard pines, are ancestral characters, 
since such characters are wont to linger on in the reproductive axis. 
Indeed in no other way can the presence of these features in the wood 
= 
of the cone be explained. It seems inadvisable to invent a new _ 
generic name for a fossil wood, which although lacking the marginal 
ray tracheids, which are characteristic not only of the wood of living 
pines, but of also Pityoxylon as generally defined, is beyond any 
reasonable doubt the wood of a Cretaceous pine. We find it diffi- 
cult to follow Gorwan (I. c., p. 102) in establishing a new pityoxyloid 
genus of fossil woods, Pinuxylon, to which is assigned the ligneous 
characters of the living Pinus in the narrower sense. Pityoxylon 
Kraus seems rather in need of a wider than a narrower interpre- 
tation, if it is to include the wood of Pinus of the Cretaceous as well 
as Tertiary times. In the case of our Pityoxylon statenense there 
can be no reasonable doubt that we have to do with the wocd of 
an extinct Cretaceous pine. It seems on account of its distinctive 
archaic features, however, inadvisable to name it under Pinus as 
ConwEN7z has rightly done in the case of the Tertiary Pinus suc- 
cinijera, which jis practically identical in its wood structure with — 
modern hard pines. The retention of the genus Pityoxylon Kraus — 
appears, for the present at any rate, absolutely essential in view of 
such cases as that presented by our Pityoxylon statenense. The 
evidence as to Pityoxylon scituatense is much less clear, as no cone 
scales or leaves have been found with it. Since, however, it presents — 
the same general features as P. statenense, it may conveniently be 
included under the same genus. 
There is good reason to believe from recent researches"? that 
the genus Pinus in essentially its modern form, so far as the external 
features of the female cones go, existed as far back as the Jurassic. 
There is even evidence that the two great series of the hard and 
soft pines existed at this early period so that the geological extension 
of the genus must have been much more remcte. Without con- 
sidering the evidence for the existence of Abietineae at earlier geo- 
logical periods than the Tertiary, furnished by impressions of the a 
13 FLicHe, P. et ZEILLER, R., Florule portlandienne des environs de Boulogne- q 
sur-Mer. Bull. Soc. Géol. France IV. 4:787-812. 1904. 
et ie AR 2 saps papempeeatene iene. 
RE Sen ee pe tf te ee 7 CPE abe Wie DE Taart Bit aati gt Te re oes 
Ee 
eer rer ere 
