276 Mr Seward, On the leaves of Bennettites. [Mar. 8, 



opportunity afforded me of examining the fossils figured in Prof. 

 Williamson's valuable memoir. 



Saporta alludes to the resemblance of the peduncle which he 

 figures to the stem of Zamites gigas 1 represented in his volume on 

 Cycads, PL XI. fig. 1, but does not regard the similarity as evidence 

 of relationship or identity. This specimen of Zamites referred 

 to in the above quotation from the second volume of the Plantes 

 Jurassiques, is of exceptional interest and furnishes the most 

 important link in the argument in favour of the connection 

 between Williamsonia and Zamites gigas. The figure in Saporta's 

 work is very imperfect and conveys but a poor and erroneous idea 

 of the actual specimen. At the base we have a stem about 5 cm. 

 broad with the surface features indistinctly preserved, but showing 

 a number of imperfect scale leaves. To one side of the stem, 

 5 cm. from the bottom of the specimen, are attached the petioles 

 of two clearly preserved fronds of Zamites gigas, and above these 

 occurs part of a third frond apparently in its natural position but 

 without the petiolar attachment. The stem is prolonged obliquely 

 upwards to the left in the form of a branch about 3 cm. broad 

 and 14 cm. long. This branch is thickly clothed with hairy leaf 

 scales and terminates in numerous spreading leaf scales of a 

 narrow linear lanceolate form. The position and surface features 

 of this branch are very inadequately and incorrectly reproduced 

 in Saporta's figure. If we now turn to the specimen figured 

 by the same author as a peduncle of Williamsonia*, and which 

 terminates in what appears to be a closed Williamsonian inflor- 

 escence, we find the characters are identical with those of the 

 branch of the stem bearing Zamites fronds. Specimens of 

 peduncles in the British Museum, and others in the collections of 

 Whitby and Scarborough, afford similar proof of the identity of 

 the detached peduncles and the obliquely placed branch of the 

 leaf-bearing stem. There can be little doubt that the terminal 

 bud-like structure on these peduncles is a young and unexpanded 

 Williamsonia, but even if this be disputed, there can be no 

 question as to the identity of the typical Williamsonia scale leaves 

 and those of the terminal bud on the peduncles. 



A specimen in the Whitby Museum shows a stem bearing two 

 diverging peduncles, and evidence of the same habit of growth is 

 afforded by an example in the British Museum. In all probability 

 the stem figured by Saporta {Plantes Jurassiques, vol. II. PI. XI. 

 fig. 1) bore another peduncle in addition to that shown in the 

 figure ; this is suggested not only by the examination of other 

 specimens but also by the oblique position of the peduncle which 



1 Pal. Franc. Plant. Jurass. Vol. n. p. 55. 



2 loc. eit. Vol. iv. PI. xv. 



