J. Starkie Gardner — Mesozoic Angiosperms. 



197 



Saporta and Marion, 1 as the specimens preserved in museums in this 

 country do not appear to reveal the characters claimed by these 

 distinguished French authors. They say that in addition to the 

 male involucres are others, smaller, less regularly globose, generally 

 empty, with a broad cicatrix at the base, corresponding to the in- 

 sertion of an organ which has evidently become detached in a 

 natural manner. Complete specimens, however, show a globular 

 receptacle or spadix, shrunk as if empty and surrounded by the 

 bracts forming the involucre. Sometimes this involucre appears to 

 have been detached entire, but more often the globular spadix with 

 the inner row only of bracts was disarticulated. The surface of 

 the spadix itself is areolate, the compartments irregularly polygonal, 

 either grouped in rosettes of five or six round central points, which 

 appear to be stigma of ripe pistils, or with these latter more irregu- 

 larly interspersed among them. The areolae are presumably barren 

 carpels. An Indian specimen shows the female spadix to have 

 possessed a fibrous covering which was shed in a single piece. A 



Fruiting organ of Williamsonia Morieri, Sap., naturally shed. The specimen is 

 preserved as carbonate of iron. Some of the bracts of the involucre remain, and 

 beneath the areolae an accident has exposed some of the ripe seeds in their natural 

 position. The specimen, magnified twice, is from the Oxfordian of Vaches- 

 JNoires. B. Areolae formed of carpels grouped together and compressed, the 

 central points being the scars of the stigmas. C. A seed greatly magnified. 

 After Saporta and Marion. 



1 Saporta has an exhaustive treatise on the subject in the press, which will be 

 superbly illustrated, in which he intends to demonstrate the absolute identity of 

 Williamsonia with Podocarya. 



