538 Carruthers — On Fossil Coniferous Fruits. 



arrangement of the scales is represented by tlie fraction H. This is 

 an anomalous arrangement, and does not belong to the recognised 

 series. My examination of Mr. Dowker's cone leads me to a dilferent 

 result. I find that there are three spirals to the left and eight to the 

 right, so that this cone belongs to the eight-ranked arrangement, 

 represented by f. Each scale siipports two seeds in the hollowed 

 superior surface near its base. Plate XXI, Fig. 6. The seeds are oval, 

 nearly half an inch long, and are apparently wingless. 



Having explained, at length, the difference between the Cycadean 

 and Coniferous cones, the description I have just given sufficiently 

 establishes that this fossil is a Coniferous fruit. The thickened 

 apophyses would indicate its affinities to the Finus vera section of 

 the genus, but it is remarkably different, as I have pointed out in the 

 large size of the basal scales. The longitudinal section of a portion 

 of Finns Pinaster, Sol., Plate XXI, Fig. 8, shows how nearly the in 

 temal arrangement of the parts of the recent cone agree with the 

 fossil when compared with Fig. 5. 



This fossil was originally figured and described by Henslow in the 

 " Fossil Flora." He referred it to the genus Zaniia, and in estima- 

 ting its relations to modem plants he said it differed from the figure 

 oi Zamia in Eichard's '-'Memoires sur les Coniferes et les Cycadees," 

 Tab. xxvi, in its more slender axis, longer scales, and the inclination 

 of the seeds consequent on the form and upward direction of the 

 scales. He inserts in the text, a diagrammatic longitudinal section 

 of the cone, making each scale support the seeds pendant from a little 

 below the middle of the upper surface, somewhat after the manner of 

 a Cycadean fruit. In the flat ideal section which he gives, he could 

 exhibit ovlj a single seed attached to each scale : his object was to 

 show the method of attachment, and not the number of seeds on 

 each. Lindley adds a particular description of the specimen, and 

 agrees wdth Henslow as to the affinities of the fossil, asserting that 

 its relation to Zamia is shoA^m " in every point of its structure." 



Endlicher in his revision of the Cycadece for the " Genera Planta- 

 rum," ( 1836) established the genus Zamiostrohus for this cone, giving 

 as the most remarkable character of the genus, that the carpellary 

 scale bore on its upper surface, a little below the middle, a single seed. 

 Neither Henslow nor Lindley specified the number of seeds borne on 

 each scale, and Endlicher misled by Henslow' s diagram, erroneously 

 assumes that there is only one seed, and on this establishes a new 

 genus, which, with good reason, he characterises as a very remarkable 

 one. He considers it intermediate between Encephalartos and Zamia. 



Presl, in Sternberg's ''Flora," parts vii. and viii. p. 195 (1838), 

 established the genus Zamites, giving in his diagnosis of the genus 

 the characters of the fruit as — strobiliform, oval, pedunculate, with 

 large imbricated scales spirally arranged. He describes twenty-five 

 species, five based on stems and the remaining twenty on leaves. 

 Where he got his fruit characters is not apparent, as he does not 

 seem to have had any specimens of fruit. Morris, in a. revision of 

 the Fossil CycadeaB, published in the Annals of Natural History, 1st 

 series, vol. vii. p. 115 (1841), adopts Presl's genus, and places in it 



