THE 



GEOLOaiCAL MAGAZINE 



No. LV.— JANUARY, 1869. 



OiaiG-IZsT-^Xj -A-E-TIOXjIEIS. 



I. — On some Undescribbd Coniferous Fruits from the 

 Secondary Eooks of Britain,^ 



By "Wm. Carruthebs, F.L.S., F.Gr.S., Botanical Department, British Museum. 

 (PLATES I. AND II.) 



I. Pinites, Witham. 



IN the paper on Coniferous Fruits I described in detail the struc- 

 ture of three cones which had originally been described as, and 

 all along believed to be, Cycadean. These cones were Zamiostrohus 

 macrocephalus, Endl. ; Z. ovatus, Gopp ; and Z. Sussexiensis, Gopp. 

 In making, in June last, a careful comparison between the version 

 of M. Brongniart's important essay, " Exposition Chronologique des 

 Periodes de Vegetation et des Flores diverses qui se Bont succede a 

 la surface de la Terre," published in the Diet. univ. cVHist. Nat. 1849, 

 and the version in the Ann. des Sc. Nat., Ser. III., Vol. xi., -p. 285, 

 bearing the same date, but which evidently, from the occasional emen- 

 dations, had had a careful and later revision by its learned author 

 than the copy with which I had heretofore been working, I found 

 that M. Brongniart had already referred two of the species to the 

 genus Pinites. On a foot-note on pp. 317, 318 of the volume quoted 

 he gives the following reason for this change : " Un echantillon de ce 

 fruit (Zamiostrohus macrocepJialus) qui vientde m'etre communique par 

 M. Wetherell, etablit d'une maniere bien positive que ce n'est pas 

 un fruit de Zamia, mais un cone de Pinus ayant tons les caracteres 

 de ce genre, relativement a la forme et a la direction des ecailes, et a 

 la position des graines gemines a leur base. Quant au Z. Susse.viensis, 

 son analogic avec le precedent me parait evidente." To M. Brong- 

 niart then belongs the credit of having first correctly determined the 

 affinities of these two cones, and they must be quoted as Pinites 

 macrocephalus, Brongn., and P. Sussexiensis, Brongn. 



To the species already recorded of this genus, I have to add two 

 new and striking species from Cretaceous Kocks, and a third from 

 the Upper Oolites. 



1 This paper is supplementary to two papers puhlished in Vol. III. of the Geol. 

 Mag. ; the one " On Araucarian Cones from the Secondary Rocks of Britain," at page 

 249 ; and the other " On some Fossil Coniferous Fruits," at page 534. 



VOL. VI. — NO. LV. 1 



