58 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JANUARY 
Fig. 1 represents a radial section of the wood of S. gigantea; fig. 2 
a few cells of this ray at a greater magnification. Mixed with the 
typical parenchymatous ray cells, there are large square cells 
whose bordered pits on radial, tangential, and vertical walls prove 
them to be tracheids. This ray is unique, all others being com- 
posed of normal, horizontally elongated, parenchyma cells as shown 
in other parts of fig 1; and it is significant to note that the branch 
from which this section was cut had been badly wounded. This 
ray, however, occurred on the side of the branch opposite the 
wound, while the rays in the wound cap itself were perfectly normal. 
On examining other wounded specimens of S. gigantea, ray tracheids 
were found occasionally, always however in close proximity to the 
traumatic resin canals. All these other ray tracheids, moreover, 
were long and low, with bordered pits only on the horizontal wall 
next the parenchymatous ray cells. 
Fig. 3 represents a ray from S. sempervirens; fig. 4 the 
same ray under a greater magnification. The ray tracheid here 
shown is like those commonly seen in S. gigantea, horizontally 
elongated, with bordered pits exclusively on the horizontal wall. 
Miss Gorpon (11) has described ray tracheids in S. sempervirens 
and I have found them in every wounded piece examined, but 
not elsewhere. JEFFREY concluded from a study of resin canals 
that S. gigantea was more primitive than S. sempervirens, and the 
larger and more vigorous ray tracheids of the former corroborate 
his conclusion. 
DeBary has reported (5) ray tracheids in the monotypic 
genus Sciadopitys. My material consisted of a repeatedly wounded 
branch and possessed scattered ray tracheids of the type shownin 
fig. 5. Those described by DEBary, however, were like those in 
hard pines, with ‘irregularly thickened ridges, projecting inward 
like teeth, on the upper and lower sides.” The toothed cells I have 
seen were very rarely ray tracheids, but were rather of the nature 
of septate tracheids. Fig. 6 shows one of them. 
Traumatic ray tracheids have been described by JEFFREY in 
Cunninghamia sinensis (12). It is interesting to note that he 
found them on the side of the branch opposite the wound, a condi- 
tion like that mentioned above in Sequoia gigantea. 
