1911] JEFFREY—GEINITZIA GRACILLIMA 25 
exhaustive, for recently a new type has been described‘ in which 
the alternating or flattened pitting, which on the former under- 
standing of the Araucarineae was characteristic of the wood of this 
coniferous stock, is entirely absent. Thus we come to the para- 
dox of an araucarian wood without araucarian pitting. Quite 
recently Miss GERRY has shown that the essence of the araucarian 
ligneous type is the absence of the bars of Sanio in the tracheids, 
and not necessarily the mode of arrangement or the shape of the 
radial pits of the tracheids. 
‘With the citation of recent investigations on coniferous woods, 
we are now in the position to consider the affinities of our cone 
axis. It has been pointed out in the foregoing paragraph that the 
cone under consideration had tracheids with unapproximated, 
unflattened, and non-alternating pits. Under the former con- 
ceptions as to the affinities of coniferous woods, our axis would cer- 
tainly have been placed with Cedroxylon or even Cupressinoxylon, 
rather than with the Araucarineae. The smooth walls of the ray 
cells exclude our axis from the ligneous genus Cedroxylon, which 
properly conceived is characterized by the strongly pitted char- 
acter of the medullary ray parenchyma, as has recently been 
insisted upon by GotHaN. The wood of the cone axis under dis- 
cussion is, as has been indicated above, in parts in an admirable 
condition of preservation, and it has been accordingly possible © 
to ascertain definitely that the bars of Sanio are quite absent. 
This important criterion brings our wood under the Araucarineae 
in the broadest sense, and among the numerous ligneous types 
which are now known to have belonged in this formerly very 
varied and comprehensive coniferous tribe. Among the known 
types of araucarian woods, it obviously falls into the genus Para- 
cedroxylon of SINNOTT. 
Conclusions 
It is apparent from the. description of the cone axis of the sup- 
posed species of Sequoia known as S. gracillima, given in the fore- 
4Srnnot, E. W., Paracedroxylon, a new type of araucarian wood. Rhodora 
11:165-173. 1909. 
5 Gerry, Etotsr, The a of sat “bars of Sanio” in the Coniferales. 
Annals of Botany 24:119-1 
