Trof, Dyer — On Oolitic Coniferce. 



151 



them scales of an Araucarian cone, 

 claim much credit ; the scales 

 are so similar in structure to 

 those from the Stonesfield 

 Slate, of which Mr. Carruthers 

 pointed out the true nature 

 three years ago,^ that a glance 

 was sufficient to ascertain what 

 they were. In the accompany- 

 ing woodcut (Figs. 1-3) the 

 scales from Solenhofen are 

 drawn of the same size as the 

 original specimens. A few 

 words of explanation as to the 

 general structure of the scales 

 in Araucaria will make the 

 Figures more intelligible. 

 . If we examine a cone of some 

 species of Finns, especially in 



For this determination I cannot 



Araucariies Sdherleinii, Dyer. 



its young state, we shall succeed in making out two distinct sets of 

 scales. The scale, in fact, which ultimately has the seeds attached to 

 it is subtended, as it were, below by another scale which bears no 

 seeds. This is generally termed the bract- scale, and is in some 

 instances more or less leaf-like. These bract-scales are, homologi- 

 cally, the leaves belonging to the axis of the cone. But, since it is 

 without parallel in the vegetable kingdom that the same axis should 

 bear two sets of leaves, one set in the axils of the others, it follows 

 that the seed-bearing scales do not belong to the primary axis of the 

 cone at all. They must belong, therefore, to secondary axes spring- 

 ing from the axils of the bracts. We may account for the apparent 

 absence of these secondary axes in one or other of two ways. They 

 may give off the seed-bearing scale as a leaf, and be in all other 

 respects wholly abortive ; or they may exist, confluent with a pair of 

 leaves, in the seed-bearing scale itself. There are facts which lend 

 themselves to the support of this last view as most probable. 



Araucariies spheerocarptis, Carruthers.'^ 



1 Geol. Mag., 1869, p. 3. 



2 (a) is a reduced representation of the whole cone ; (c) is an end view of one of the 

 scales showing the two apices, of the natural size ; {b) is a longitudinal section of a 

 scale. For {a) and (c) I am indebted to Mr. Carruthers ; (fi) is from the Geol. 

 Mag., 1871, p. 643. 



