72 MEMOIRS OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN 
found in the heterosporous Lycopodiales, an argument which may 
now be considered as having very slight support since it has been 
abandoned even by Professor Seward, the latest and most vigorous 
defender of the lycopodineous origin of the Araucarineae, we may 
proceed to examine the grounds for deriving the Araucarineae 
directly from the older gymnosperms with crowded radial pitting 
of the tracheids. 
In the first place it should be pointed out that the nature of the 
ligneous pitting alone cannot serve satisfactorily to establish relation- 
ships, since in that case the angiosperms and Gnetales must both 
be connected directly with the older gymnosperms, because they 
usually possess the same alternate type of pitting and Gingko, which 
shows so many primitive characters, must be allied with the Abieti- 
neae, since it shares with these the feature of opposite non-alternat- 
ing pits and the even more striking character of the bars of Sanio. 
As has been pointed out by Kraus, the kind of pitting found in the 
living Araucarineae and in Araucarioxylon Kraus, presents this 
general feature of difference from that found in the Cordaitales, etc. 
—that the bordered pits are for the most part crowded in the ends of 
the tracheids and do not cover the entire radial walls of the water- 
conducting elements. 
The wound reactions of Brachyoxylon and .draucariopitys con- 
stitute a strong objection to the derivation of the Coniferales 
through the Araucarineae from the older gymnosperms. It has 
been pointed out by the junior author® that the type of abietineous 
wood, characterized by the presence of resin canals in the mature 
secondary wood as the result of injury only, is less ancient than that 
in which the resin canals are a normal feature of the secondary wood, 
as is shown by the greater geological age of the abietineous type 
with normal resin canals in the wood, and by the fact that in accord- 
ance with the theory of recapitulation those Abietineae which do 
not normally possess resin canals in their secondary wood often show 
them in the first year's growth. The greater antiquity of those 
Abietineae, which, like Pinus, have resin canals normally present in 
the secondary wood, further seems to be placed quite beyond ques- 
tion by the discovery of structural remains of the ancient abieti- 
neous type, Prepinus, in which the leaves are characterized by a struc- 
ture of the fibrovascular bundles identical in general organization 
? Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. 6:5. 1905. 
