388 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—K. 
Dr. Marcaret Benson.—Hallé’s new technique for the study of in- 
crusted plant remains on primary rocks (11.20). 
Details are given on pp. 4 and 5 of Hallé’s treatise, On the Structure 
of certain Fossil Spore-bearing Organs believed to belong to Pteridosperms, 
Stockholm (1933). Many of his microtome sections were sent to the Geo- 
logical Survey Museum, London, and with his approval were entrusted to the 
author for further study. 
Calathiops (Geeppert) has recently been demonstrated to be ovular and 
not synangial by three distinct lines of research : 
C. Telovulum (Telangium, Kidston), because it gives rise ontogenetically 
to a Calymmatotheca and contains embryo-sacs. 
C. Pterispermo strobus, by ocular demonstration. New specimen, P. 
Bernhardti, Gothan. 
C. Schuetzia 
C. Whittleseya | because they produce female spores. 
Hallé’s slides allow of the high power of the microscope. They reveal 
that the general structure of all the bodies he deals with is similar. What 
have been regarded as 4-spores are either epidermal cells freed from their 
superincumbent cuticle and from non-cuticularised cells, or some few are 
embryo-sacs. The true 9-spores, triradiate and minute, are sheathed in 
the epidermis of the cupules and nucellus of the young ovules. 
These results throw light on Hospermatopteris and many other types. 
Completely cuticularised, triradiate 9-spores of the same size as their 
contemporary pollen grains, now demonstrated in Lower Carboniferous 
ovules, are new to science, and confirm Boyd Thomson’s view that a seed 
is not a megasporangium. : 
Dr. 'T. Jounson.—The leaf beds of Ardtun, Canna and Skye (11.50). 
Forbes in 1851, Starkie Gardner in 1887, Seward and Holttum in 1924 
called attention, by description and illustration, to the interesting Eocene 
flora at Ardtun in the Isle of Mull. In the present paper an account is 
given of certain, mostly unnamed, collections from Ardtun, as well as from 
Canna and Skye, preserved in various institutions, viz. : The Glasgow City 
Museum (and Art Galleries); the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh ; 
the Hunterian Museum (University of Glasgow); the Geological Division, 
University of Edinburgh ; as well as Mr. J. A. Inglis’s specimens from a 
new locality in Skye. Half the collection made by Gardner in 1887, by 
the aid of a Government grant, was sent to Inveraray and is still, spite of 
all the author’s efforts, not available for examination. The examination 
of this Hebridean flora supports the view of the origin of the flora from an 
earlier circumpolar flora which radiated southwards. 'The volcanic activities 
which gave us Staffa with Fingal’s Cave, and the Giant’s Causeway, followed 
by the Ice Age, destroyed many types, like Onoclea and Libocedrus, still 
thriving in N. America (Atlantic side more especially) and E Asia, or like 
Sequoia (Pacific N. America) and Ginkgo (E. Asia) in one region only. 
Certain forms, such as Cupressus, Platanus and Quercus, had already migrated 
further southwards and are now to be found in S.E. Europe or the Near 
East. Others like Podocarpus and Araucaria had gone still further afield. 
A detailed exploration of the fossil sites in Canna and Skye would be amply 
repaid. ‘The flora, so far revealed, strengthens the view of the former 
existence of a land-bridge between Greenland and Britain. 
