536 Carruthers — On Fossil Coniferous Fruits. 



terminal seed. The fruit of Taxinece, and the drupe-like fruit of 

 some Cupressinece cannot be confounded with the cones of Cycade<s. 

 The form of scale, the arrangement of the scales on the cone, and 

 the number and position of the seeds, are obvious diversities whereby 

 to distinguish the indurated cone of the remaining Cupressinets from 

 that of Cycadece ; while the sessile, flat, imbricated scale, bearing the 

 seeds adnate to its upper surface, clearly separates the cone of the 

 AbietinecB. Any difficulty in determining the affinity of a cone by its 

 external characters can easily be solved, as to whether it is Coniferous, 

 Cycadean, or Proteacious, by a transverse section, which would 

 show, if the structure is even a little preserved, the form of the 

 scale, and the position of the seed. 



In some of the sections of Conifens, especially in the Cupressinece, 

 the cones have so many striking peculiarities, that it is possible to 

 descend in the determination of a fossil specimen even to the modern 

 generic representative. But in the Ahietinece proper I cannot agree 

 with Goppert, who in his valuable Monograph of Fossil Coniferm 

 refers different cones, without any hesitation, to the various sections 

 or so-called genera into which Pinus is divided. With all the 

 materials at the command of the student of living plants, and his 

 power of dissecting and examining fresh specimens, he is not able to 

 find in the cones permanent characters which can satisfactorily 

 separate the various sections of Pinus. When the materials are so 

 imperfect, and so intractable as fossils generally are, it is vain to 

 propose sub-divisions which cannot be maintained even for recent 

 specimens. The presence or absence of an enlarged apex which 

 distinguishes Abies and its allies from the Pinus division, is obvious 

 when we are dealing with the well-marked species ; but while the 

 sections Cembra and Strobiis of Endlicher are undoubtedly sub- 

 divisions of Pinus, they so resemble some of the sections of Abies 

 that at least, in fossil specimens, it would be impossible to determine 

 their affinities. I shall accordingly employ the name Pinites, in the 

 same comprehensive sense in which Endlicher uses Pinus, as including 

 all the Abietineous cones, even when there seems reason for consider- 

 ing them as more allied to one of the sections or so-called genera of 

 the modern genus. ^ 



1. Pinites macrocephalijs. 



Cone cylindrical, obtuse at both ends ; scales with thick and flat irregularly six-sided 

 apophyses ; basal scales largest. 



Zamia maeroeepJmla, Lindl. and Hutt., Fossil Flora, Vol. ii. p. 117, PI. cxxt. — 

 Zamiosirobus macrocephaliis, Endl., Genera Plantarum, p. 72. — Zamites macroee- 

 phalus, Morris, Ann. of Nat. Hist., Ser. I, Vol. vii. p. 116. — Zamiostrobus 

 Hensloivii, Miquel, Monographia Cycadearum, p. 75. 



I have examined three cones of this species, one belonging to 

 Mr. George Dowker, and the others in the collection of the British 

 Museum. The drawings and descriptions in the Fossil Flora refer to 

 a fourth specimen. I have taken advantage of all these in drawing 

 up the following descriptions. 



^ A striking illustration of the futility of the opposite course to that advocated 

 above is afforded by the fossil known as Strobilites Woodwardii, Lindl. Goppert, in 



