540 Carruthers — On Fossil Coniferous Fruits, 



" did not exhibit any indication of vegetable strncture." Z. familiaris, 

 Ung., judging from Sternberg's fig. (tab. 46, /. 2) is a true conifer. 

 And Z. crassus, Gopp., is, as I have said, perbaps a Cycadean fruit ; 

 but this I may probably more carefully investigate on a future 

 occasion. 



There has been an error in regard to the age as well as to the 

 structure of this singular cone. It is always refen-ed to the Green- 

 sand ; but Mr. Dowker having found his specimen in situ in a pit 

 near Canterbury, I am able to correct this error. Henslow's speci- 

 men was found in clearing out a pond near Deal, and from the 

 general appearance of the material (a light yellowish-grey sand- 

 stone) of which it is composed, he referred it to the Greensand. It 

 appears to be in the same mineral condition as Mr. Dowker's speci- 

 men, which he obtained from a bed near the junction of the Wool- 

 wich and Thanet beds ; and he obligingly informs me that similar 

 cones have been found near the Eeculvers, where great quantities of 

 silicified wood are met with. The wood occurs, he says, at Eich- 

 borough, at the bottom of the Woolwich beds, associated with Corhnla 

 JteguTbiensis ; and to this position he refers the bed in which his cone 

 was found. The cone is then a Tertiary fossil, and this is confirmed 

 by the Bowerbank specimen, which is from Sheppy. The Cow- 

 deroy specimen is without locality. 



2. PiNITES OVATUS. 

 Cone ovate, ■with a truncate base and obtuse apes ; scales with thickened, flat, sub- 

 quadrangular apophyses ; basal scales largest. 



Zamia ovata, Lindl. and Hutt., Fossil Flora, .Vol. iii. p. 189, PI. 226 A. — Zamites 

 ovata, Mon-is, Ann. Nat. Hist. 1st series, Vol. vii. p. 116. — Zamiostrobus ovatus, 

 Gopp., Uebers. d. Schles. Ges. 1844, p. 129. 



There is an imperfect specimen of this cone, without the apex, in 

 the British Museum, from the Cowderoy collection, which, as far as it 

 goes, answers in every respect to that figured by Lindley and Hutton. 



The cone is smaller than P. macrocejplialus, and can readily be dis- 

 tinguished from it by the form of the apophyses of the scales which 

 are longer than they are broad, and quadrangular or subquadrangular, 

 the upper and lower angles being acute or but slightly truncate. 

 They both agree in the great size of the scales at the base of the cone, 

 a structure peculiar to these two species, but not sufficient as it 

 appears to me to separate them from the genus Pinites. A transverse 

 section of the specimen in the Museum, exhibiting the structure 

 beautifully preserved, shows that it had a slender axis, the centre of 

 which is occupied with cellular tissue, and surrounded by a cylinder 

 of wood. Being transverse the section cannot exhibit the discs on the 

 vascular tissue, but it exactly agrees with transverse sections of recent 

 cones. A regular series of large ducts are arranged symmetrically 

 around the axis. Each scale supports two seeds. The tissue of 

 these has entirely disappeared, the cavity being filled with carbonate 

 of lime. Three other scales are seen beyond that bearing the seeds 

 in the section, Plate XX, Pig. 4. 



The Cowderoy specimen is without locality, and that described and 

 figured by Lindley and Hutton is a rolled fossil, which was found upon 



