J. Starkie Gardner — JKesozoic Angiosperms. 199 



Podocarya. Carruthers redescribed it x as of " the size of a large 

 orange, and composed of an indefinite number of cells, each con- 

 taining, near the surface, a single longish seed, about the size of a 

 grain of rice. The cells were separated from the spadix by long 

 fibrous footstalks, and were surmounted by hexagonal tubercles, in 

 the centre of which could be seen the remains of a stigma." The 

 resemblance of this fruit to that of Williamsonia when deprived of 

 its involucre should not be overlooked. 2 Another Pandanaceous 

 fruit from the Great Oolite of Kingsthorpe, near Northampton, is 

 named Kaidacarpum by Carruthers and is thus described (p. 155, op. 

 cit.): 3 — 



" The fruit consists of a thick spadix, — not so thick, however, in. 

 proportion to the drupes as in Bryantia butyrophora, Webb. The 

 drupes leave the spadix at a right angle about one-third from the 

 apex, those above have an ascending and those below a descending 

 direction, increasing as it reaches the fruit-stalk, which is seen in the 

 fossil, and shown in the drawing. This arrangement is precisely 

 that of Sussea conoidea, Gaud. The drupes are rhomboidal at the 

 base, spreading out laterally towards the apex, where their form is 

 a broad compressed rhomb two or three times longer than it is broad. 

 The cell containing the seed is near the base of the fruit, leaving 

 only a short pedicle or being really sessile, as in the recent species 

 with single-seeded drupes. Each drupe contains a single seed ; and 

 although the whole structure is replaced by calcite, yet the details 

 are so beautifully shown that the connection of the seed by an 

 internal unilateral placenta adnate to the whole length of the cell is 

 in many cases obvious. The seed is ovoid and compressed and 

 the cicatrix at its base, by which it was attached to the placenta, 

 can be detected." A comparison of the fossil with Sussea conoidea, 

 Gaud., places it beyond doubt, in the author's opinion, " that it is 

 a true Pandanaceous fruit." Another less perfectly preserved 

 species is in the Woodwardian Museum from the Potton Sands of 

 Cambridgeshire, and figured by Lindley and Hutton, but it is 

 certainly a derived fossil, and of Jurassic age. Another is recorded 

 from the Upper Greensand of Wiltshire. It was originally figured 



1 Geol. Mag. Vol. Y. April, 1868, PI. IX. pp. 153-156. 



2 See note ante. I was not in the least aware of Saporta's conclusion when this was 

 written. 



3 The mode of preservation is important, and is stated to be as follows : — " The 

 matrix in which it is preserved is an amorphous cream-coloured limestone, which has 

 abounded in Molluscan remains, but the shells have been removed, and the spaces 

 they occupied, as well as the other larger cavities in the rock, are lined with or 

 entirely filled up by crystallized calcite. The fruit also is only a cast, in the same 

 material, of the cavity which originally contained it. The fine white mud had 

 insinuated itself into every crack and opening of the fruit, and filled the decayed 

 interior of the upper portion of the drupes. The walls of the seed cavity and the 

 seeds themselves, as well as the outer membrane of the drupes, resisted decay until 

 the matrix was somewhat compacted. These hard portions at length decayed, but the 

 insoluble carbon remained as a black amorphous substance, giving an external coloured 

 coating to the crystallized carbonate of lime, which in the end tilled the cavity, pre- 

 serving in the most perfect manner the form of the fruit, and even some of the minute 

 details as to the relation of the different parts." Geol. Mag. I.e. 



