Carruthers — On Fossil Coniferous Fruits. 537 



Mr. Dowker's specimen, whicli he has kindly lent me for examina- 

 tion, is converted into silicious chert. The one half — probably that 

 ■which was originally buried in the mud in which it was preserved — 

 has the apophyses of the scales so preserved as to show their great 

 thickness, yet, as in the other specimens, the original outer surface 

 has been removed. The other half of the cone is without the 

 apophyses, but is very instructive, exhibiting the imbrication of the 

 scales, and at its base, where the axis is laid bare, showing the 

 cavities in a scale which the two seeds originally occupied. This 

 surface is figured on Plate XX, Fig. 1, the apophyses of three scales 

 being restored from the lower half to show the external appearance 

 of the cone. One of the Museum specimens is a fragment from the 

 Bowerbank collection, 2^ inches long from the upper portion of a 

 cone. The transverse section. Fig. 2, is drawn from this. The other 

 Museum specimen is a complete cone from the Cowderoy collection. 

 It is considerably water-worn. Two longitudinal slices for micro- 

 scopic examination have been taken out of the centre, and a portion, 

 of one of these has been drawn on Plate XXI, Fig. 5. 



The cone is cylindrical in shape, very slightly tapering upwards, 

 and obtuse at both extremities. It is from 4^ inches (Henslow) to 

 nearly 6 inches (Dowker) in length, and almost 2^ inches across. 

 The axis is about a quarter of an inch in diameter. The scales are 

 broad and sessile. They leave the axis almost at a right angle, and 

 just outside the seed they bend sharply upwards, continuing with 

 a slightly outward direction until they approach the surface, where 

 they swell into the large thickened apophyses or hexagonal apices. 

 These having the appearance externally of being valvate, give 

 the cone a Cycadean aspect ; but they scarcely differ from those 

 of Firms Pinea, L. the Stone Pine of the Mediterranean region. 

 Indeed, in the form, size, and arrangement of the apophyses, this 

 recent pine remarkably resembles the fossil cone. The form of the 

 cone and its internal structure is, however, very different, and the 

 fossil is unlike all recent Abietineous cones, with which I am 

 acquainted, in having the basal scales larger than those of the body. 

 The basal scales are barren, and the apophyses rise from their whole 

 surface ; in the series immediately above them there is a short flat 

 body to the scale, but the greater portion of the scale is covered with 

 the apophysis ; the third series are fertile, and have a longer and 

 more ascending body. The outer surface of the apex or apophysis 

 of the scale is destroyed in the specimens I have examined. The 

 Bowerbank fragment is the most perfect in this respect. In it the 

 apex is three-eighths of an inch thick, and the surface of each scale 

 is slightly convex on the centre of its upper portion. Henslow made 

 a diagram of the phyllotaxis of the cone, and he considers that the 



his " Fossilen Coniferen," p. 210, establishes the genus Laricites for this fossil, it 

 being the only known species of the genus. Professor Heer, however, when, some 

 time ago, examining the Tertiary fossils in the British Museum, showed my colleague, 

 Mr. H. Woodward, that it was only the axis of a cone, with the scales bitten off, (by 

 a squirrel ?) leaving thin stumps, I have examined the specimens and am satisfied that 

 this is really the case. 



