7.4. BRITISH EOCENE FLORA. 



Tsuga Hekrii, sp. nov. Plate XVI, figs. 1 — 4, and 10 — 10. 



Pinus MacClurii, Ileer (pars). Flora foss. Arctica, vol. vii, p. 65, pi. lxxxvii, fig;. 3, 

 1883 ; non P. MacClurii, Heer, ibid., vol. i, pi. 

 figs, xx, 16—18, p. 134, 1868. 



Basaltic Formation, Ballypalady, County Antrim. 



The cones represented on PI. XVI, figs. 1 — 4, though apparently dissimilar, agree 

 somewhat in form and in the relative strength and position of the footstalk, and are all 

 composed of thin, leathery scales. They may indeed belong to several species, but it is 

 not wholly impossible for them all to have belonged to one, though perhaps shed at different 

 stages of maturity. The scanty and imperfectly preserved material does not in any case 

 afford data for separate specific determination, and it is therefore convenient to group 

 them together. Fig. 1, PI. XVI, is a cone sixty millimetres in length and twenty in 

 diameter, seated on a short, stout footstalk, and composed of numerous loosely imbri- 

 cated, thin, apparently leathery acales, pointed as in P. monticola (Woodcut, fig. 26), 

 and striated and spoon-shaped to receive the seed. Fig. 2, PI. XVI, is a slender, ovate, 

 elongate cone, tapering to the extremities, thirty-five millimetres in length and fifteen 

 millimetres in breadth, erect on a short, stout footstalk. The scales are imbricated, thin, 

 leathery, about forty-eight in number, elliptical, with entire margin, seven millimetres 

 across, but becoming very small towards the base, and irregularly but distinctly striated 

 longitudinally. A similar though larger cone was described as Elate austriaca, 1 a genus 

 founded by Endlicher on account of the wood-structure, which he considered to be nearer 

 that of the Larch than of any other conifer. Fig. 3, PI. XVI, is a closely imbricated 

 cone, fifty millimetres in length and about fifteen in diameter, curved, very pointed, and 

 seated on a stout footstalk. It is difficult to make out the form of the scales, as they are 

 not separable in the specimen, but they are deeply striated longitudinally, and were 

 possibly fringed. Fig. 4 of same Plate is more like fig. 1, and seems to have possessed 

 broad, thin scales and large seed. 



Fig. 1 might possibly be a Pine of the Cembra section, though I have not seen any 

 species of such relatively small dimensions. Fig. 2 somewhat recalls Tsuga jessoensis, 

 and also the Larch, though its stem has not the external appearance so characteristic 

 of that genus. The scales of fig. 3 might have been fimbriated, or the presence of 

 bracts may have caused this appearance. On the whole, there is no genus they can 

 be more satisfactorily placed in than Tsuga. Figs. 5 — 7, PI. XVI, are referred to under 

 Pinus Plutonis (p. 70), though their apparently leathery scales seem to ally them more 

 especially with the cones above described. Casts of undoubted Pine are found in 

 precisely the same state of fossilisation, and it is difficult to determine definitely whether 

 1 Unger, ' Chloris Protogrea,' pi. xix, figs. 1 — 8, p. 70, from Niederwallsee, Lower Austria. 



