6 W. Carruthers — British Fossil ConifercB. 



Impressions of two fragments of branches have been seen by me 

 in the Stonesfield slate, which most probably belonged to this 

 species (both in the collection of the British Museum), of one of 

 which a portion is figured on Plate II., Fig. 5. 



I have also observed a leaf agreeing in the size of its base with the 

 scars on the branches, and in form with the leaves of some living 

 species of Araucaria. It is represented at Figure 6 of the same Plate. 



2. Akaucakites Phillipsii, sp. nov. Plate II. Figs. 7-9. 



Scales from the centre of the cone cuneate, nearly as broad as long, 

 lower scale thickish throughout, without membranous wings. 



"Winged seed," Phillips' Geology of Yorkshire, ed. I. (1829), 

 p. 190, plate X, fig. 5. 



Locality. — Inferior Oolite or Lower Calcareous Sandstone Aales 

 (Phillips) of Yorkshire. 



Professor Phillips observed these scales in the beds at Haiburn 

 Wyke. He was evidently unable to determine to his own satis- 

 faction what they were, and so modified his first suggestion that 

 they were probably the seeds of Cycadites, at page 150, to the more 

 general designation, " Winged seed," at page 190. 



When I detected the species just described in the Oxford Museum, 

 Prof. Phillips drew my attention to the similar organisms from York- 

 shire. They are smaller in size than the species just described, 

 being from six to eight lines long by about six lines broad. The 

 structure of the scale, with its single median seed, although not so 

 clearly exhibited as in the casts of specimens in the Stonesfield 

 slate, is sufficient to show, without any doubt, that it is an Arau- 

 carian scale. Additional evidence confirming this opinion is ob- 

 tained from a fragment of a cone in the collection of Prof. William- 

 son, of Manchester, and which he has been good enough to let me 

 have for the purpose of figuring it. This specimen (Fig. 7) is 

 a portion of a rubbed cone, imperfect at both extremities, with the 

 scales abraded to near the axis, showing the cavities which held the 

 seeds, and these are filled on one side of the cone with carbonate of lime, 

 which takes the form of the seed it has replaced. Each scale bears a 

 single seed, as in Araucaria, and the size of the scale and the seed cor- 

 responds with that seen in the detached scales. As this fragment is 

 from the same deposit as the scales, it may fairly be concluded that 

 it is the cone of Araucarites Phillipsii. It shows it to have been 

 smaller, more cylindrical, and to have been composed of smaller, 

 shorter, and more broadly cuneate scales than A. spTioero carpus, 

 Carr., found in beds of the same age at Bruton, Somersetshire. 



Professor PhiUips figures the apex of the scale terminating in a 

 single short apiculus. I have not been able to detect this, but the 

 mineral condition of the specimens, and the shale in which they are 

 preserved, make it difficult to determine clearly minute points in 

 their structure. It is probable from the apparent absence of the 

 double apiculus to the scales, and the want of the membranous wings, 

 that this species may belong to the section of the genus named 

 Colymbeia by Salisbury, and confined among living plants to the 

 species inhabiting South America. 



