58 Dr. M. O. Slopes — The Kentish Rag 'Dragon-tree'. 



When, therefore, I found traces of pulverizing woody remains in 

 Benstedtia I examined them critically, and by this simple method was 

 able to determine that the wood of Benstedtia was gymnospermic, 

 and that the tracheids had circular bordered pits, lying in a single row 

 at seme distance from each other. These are quite unlike the Cycads, 

 which have several rows of closely adjacent pits. Although this does 

 not make it possible to determine the exact genus to which Benstedtia 

 must have belonged, it yet proves without doubt that the plant 

 was one of the higher Coniferae, probably of the Taxodineae or 

 Abietineae : the Araucarineae, Taxaceae, and Cycads are eliminated 

 from the plants available for comparison. 



Fliche, Bull. Soc. Sci., Nancy, 1900, pp. 15 et seq. (I am indebted 

 to Professor Seward for reminding me of this paper), compares casts 

 of French specimens which have surface features like Benstedtia (with 

 which, however, he does not compare them) with the living Araucarias, 

 and in particular with the section Colymbea. In the absence of 

 internal structure in his specimens this comparison may still hold 

 good, for there is nothing to show that his plant was not an Araucarian 

 type. As in the similar British specimens, however, the wood is that 

 of the higher Coniferae, it may probably appear later that the French 

 specimens belong to this group also. This is further supported by one 

 of our fossils, which practically proves that the transversely ridged 

 ' exterior ' is not necessarily the true outer surface of the plant as it 

 was when alive. Fliche assumed that his transversely ridged stem 

 was directly comparable to the Araucarinene he mentions. 



It has not been easy to find among living Coniferae a parallel 

 development to the curious transverse ridging which is conspicuous in 

 some of the specimens of the fossil, and which is so like the Zamia 

 figured by Professor Seward. In most of the specimens available 

 there seemed no possible stage of decortication that would give 

 a parallel to the features in the fossil. In some of the very contorted 

 and warped specimens of trunks which are common enough in plants 

 grown under unfavourable circumstances, I found that the wood splits 

 down so as to give a rippling, transversely ridged surface, very similar 

 to the fossil. Also trunks with such warped and contorted woods 

 simulate the apparently dichotomizing trunk figured by both Mackie 

 and Seward. 



The curious little rounded protuberances in these ridges in some 

 specimens figured by previous observers and taken by Professor Sewai'd 

 to be a feature of the plant itself are not present in all the specimens, 

 and appear to me to be possible of interpretation as the ends of teredo 

 borings, left, not as true borings, but as impressions of borings in the 

 cast of the ripple-surfaced wood. Such wood, splitting longitudinally 

 so as to give a rippled surface, can be seen at Kew in the collection of 

 coniferwoods, and, as teredo borings of the diameter of the protuberances 

 in the fossil are not at all uncommon for this geological horizon, this 

 explanation of the whole structure, though dull and prosaic, has the 

 merit of probability and simplicity. The hollow stem which some 

 have attributed to the plant is without doubt due to decay preceding 

 petrifaction. 



Except for historical interest, and for the convenience of having 



