MORPHOLOGY OF PINITES OBLONGUS. 193 



evidence that each carpellary scale bore two seeds, as is 

 the case with the true Abietinese. Most of the features 

 seen in fig. i are repeated in these two seeds, which are 

 intersected in an obliquely transverse manner, the section 

 being tangential to the surface of the entire cone. We 

 have the testa of each seed at e. Each intersected embryo- 

 sac appears at g, g. The wings are at h, h, extending 

 over the entire upper surface of each seed so completely 

 as to invest their two contiguous surfaces ; whilst the thick- 

 ened portions, already referred to, are very obvious at h' , h'. 

 The testa of each seed in this section is fringed at its in- 

 ferior surface with some detached flocculent tissue. 



In the interior of the nucellar cavity of some of these 

 seeds a number of small and very delicate spheres, of 

 various sizes, are visible ; these may be products of minera- 

 lization, but how produced is not easy to determine. As 

 already observed, Lindley and Hutton placed their cone 

 in the modern genus Abies in consequence of the apparent 

 absence of the terminal thickening usually seen in the 

 carpellary scales of the cones of Pinus. But the relatively 

 large size of the seed is more suggestive of affinities with 

 Pinus than with Abies ; the more so since in such cones 

 as those of Pinus Strobus and Cembra the terminal por- 

 tions of these scales are only thickened in a small degree 

 beyond what occurs in those of Abies. But apart from 

 these facts, Mr. Carruthers, in one of the memoirs re- 

 ferred to^, has given excellent reasons for avoiding the 

 use of such ill-defined general terms as Pinus and Abies, 

 hence he has placed Lindley and Hutton^s cone in the 

 provisional genus Pinites, and I have followed his ex- 

 ample. 



This name sufficiently indicates the general affinities of 

 such specimens as the one under consideration, without 



* Geological Mtigazine, vol. iii. p. 536, 

 SER. III. VOL. X. O 



