450 



BENNETTITALES 



[OH. 



breadth of 6 cm. (fig. 561) : numerous linear bracts cover the 

 surface and in the lower portion many of them are broken. A note- 

 worthy feature is the absence of any clean-cut base, a fact pointing 

 to fracture rather than a natural abscission of the fertile axis. 

 The following description may serve to give a general idea of the 

 salient characters. Flowering shoot ovoid, covered with linear 

 bracts some of which are prolonged above the conical apex as 

 slender tapered organs and two of them bear a few short lateral 



Fig. 561. Williamsonia scotica. Strobilus in surf ace- view ; I, bract with short 

 lateral appendages. (Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh; f nat. size.) 



appendages (fig. 561, I), probably reduced leaflets, near their 

 distal ends. The cyhndrical axis, completely hidden by bracts, 

 1-5 cm. in its widest part, bears in the lower or sterile region 

 bracts and long hairs and in the upper part interseminal scales 

 and immature megasporophylls which together form a narrow 

 band (fig. 562, S) 2 mm. broad extending over the incompletely 

 preserved and conical apex, as in some of the American examples 



