542 



W. Carruthers — On the Secondary Coniferce. 



Cone of Seqiioiites ovalis, 

 sp. nov. 



The genus Sequoia is represented by two species in the existing 

 vegetation of the globe. The one is the famous Wellingtonia or 

 Mammoth Tree, supposed to be confined 

 to a very limited region, but now known to 

 occur in large groves through an extent of 

 at least 120 miles along the western flank 

 of the Sierra Nevada, North America, at a 

 height of about 5000 feet above the level 

 of the sea. The other is ;S'. sempervirens, 

 the red- wood of the timber trade, and has a 

 much greater range, extending further to 

 the north. The Sequoia groves contain 

 immense numbers of trees of all ages, from 

 the seedling to the king of the forest, so 

 that there, is no reason to fear their ex- 

 tirpation. 



The Cretaceous rocks contain the earliest 

 known representatives of the genus. If 

 we refer, in accordance with the opinions 

 of Heer and Schimper, the fossils known 

 as Geinitzia cretacea, Endl., and Widdring- 

 tonites fastigiatus, Endl., to Sequoiites, we 

 have six Mesozoic species of the genus, of 

 which three are from the Gault, and three 

 from the Upper Greensand or Chalk.^ 



Araucarites sphcerocarpus, Carr., Geol. Mag., III., p. 349. I take 

 this opportunity of recording a point in the structure of this cone 

 which is additional to my description. In mounting the specimen 

 on a tablet for exhibition, some of the scales freely separated 

 from the others, and disclosed a structure and arrangement of parts 

 which agrees with that in Araucaria Bidwillii, Hooker. The single 



1 Trautscbold, in a recent memoir (Nouv. Mem. Soc. Nat. de Moscow, vol. xiii., 

 1871, p. 225), has separated, but without sufficient reason, the fossil from Kline, 

 near Moscow, which Eichwald described as Geinitzia cretacea, Endl. (Lethsea Eossica, 

 vol. ii., p. 48), and has placedit in the genus Araucarites, under the name A. hamatus, 

 His uniting Araucarites crassifolius, Corda, in Eichwald, I.e. p. 50, pi. iv., fig. 10, is, 

 as far as Eichwald's figure and description are concerned, obviously an error. Traut- 

 Bchold's figure (pi. xxi., fig. 3) shows in one of the branches a cone, which belongs 

 to Sequoia, judging from the form and direction of the scales; a similar fruit is 

 represented in pi. xxi., fig. 7. This is described as a new species under the name 

 Finns elliptica (p. 227), with the following diagnostic characters : " Strobilis 

 ellipticis, squamis apice valde incrassatis, dorso rhomboidali carina transversal! 

 dimidiato, in medio carinaj tuberculo prominente." The size of the cone, the form 

 of the scales, and the absence of imbrication in the scales, are characters which 

 would place the cone in Sequoia, while the transverse carina and the prominent tubercle 

 fall in with this interpretation of its position. A similar cone is given in the upper 

 part of fig. 6, pi. xxi. If the restoration of the scale as given by Eichwald (I.e. 

 pi. v., fig. 8, /, g, h) is accurate, it would throw doubt as to whether this fossil can be 

 placed in the recent genus Sequoia, but it would certainly be nearly related to it, and 

 far removed from Pinus, or Araucaria, with which Trautschold has associated it. 

 In his text Trautschold considers this cone as nearly allied to Pinus priiuceva, Lindl. 

 and Hutt. : but I have shown that this is a true Cycadean fruit (Geol. Mag., 1867, 

 Vol. IV., p. 105). The facies of the flora from Kline suggest to me that they are of 

 Cretaceous age. 



