66 



BRITISH EOCENE FLORA. 



fourteen millimetres, 



and the height visible in the impressions but eight millimetres. 

 The unique specimen known is a hollow mould in so small a con- 

 cretion of ferruginous sandstone that the walls are only some five 

 to seven millimetres thick. Inside this there was a lignitic core, 

 casts of which have been made, though they are of little if any 

 palaeontological value. The mode of fossilisation is exceptional 

 and difficult to understand, for the partings between the scales 

 are incised on the mould instead of elevated, and the surfaces 

 of the scales themselves somewhat convex, as if the walls of 

 the mould had bulged as the vegetable tissue of the cone shrank 

 away. 



The fossil clearly belongs to the Strobus section of Pines, 

 and the species with which it is most comparable are P. pence, 

 growing in European Turkey at elevations of 5000 and 6000 

 feet, — P. monticola of Northern California, a species growing on 

 Trinity Mountain at an elevation of 7000 feet, and on the banks 

 of rivers in Oregon and Washington Territory, — P. strobus of 

 Canada to Virginia, and P. excelsa of the Himalayas, at eleva- 

 tions of 6000 to 12,000 feet. All these are quite hardy, and 

 the presence of the fossil in the Thanet Beds is therefore cor- 

 roborative of the relatively temperate climate of that period. 



I am not acquainted with any fossil cone sufficiently near 

 it to enable a useful comparison to be made. The original 

 specimen in still in Professor Prestwich's collection, and I am 

 indebted to him for the opportunity of describing and re- 

 figuring it. 



Fig. 26. — Finns monticola (from 

 • Veitch's Manual,' p. 181). 



Pinus Dixoni, Boioerbank, sp. Plate XIII, figs. 1, 2, 4, 5, 8. 



Pinites Dixoni, Boiverbank. In Dixon's Geol. Sussex, ed. 1, p. 84, pi. ix, fig. 3, 1850. 

 — — Ibid., ed. 2, p. 162, 1878. 



Middle Bagshot, Bracklesham ; Bembridge Marls, Gurnet Bay, Isle of Wight. 

 The specimen originally figured is still preserved in the Botanical Department of the 

 British Museum, though in a very imperfect state. It was described by Carruthers 1 as 



1 Dixon, 2 ed., p. 162. 



