502 



CYCADOPHYTA 



[CH. 



Fig. 586. Beania gracilis^ 

 (After Camithers ; J nat. 

 size.) 



BEANIA. Carruthers. 

 Beania gracilis Carrutliers. 



The generic name Beania^ was given to a branched fertile 

 shoot (fig. 586) from the Middle Jurassic beds at Gristhorpe, York- 

 shire, characterised by loosely disposed 

 sporophylls bearing two sessile seeds: 

 each sporophyll is given off at a wide 

 angle from a fairly stout axis and the 

 seeds are borne on the adaxial side of a 

 peltate distal expansion. Carruthers com- 

 pared the type-species with a cone of 

 Zamia with which it agrees in the general 

 plan of construction but differs in the 

 more open habit and in the longer and 

 more slender seed-bearing pedicels. The 

 same type of shoot was figured by Lindley 

 and Hutton^ as Sphaereda paradoxa. 

 Beania is generally regarded as a Cyca- 

 dean reproductive shoot, but there is no doubt that the majority 

 of Jurassic Cycadophyta possessed flowers of the Bennettites 

 types, and it is clear that Beania differs considerably from 

 Bennettites and Williamsonia. Another suggestion is that Beania 

 may belong to some member of the Ginkgoales^: though very 

 different from the normal ovuliferous shoot of a Ginkgo, it resembles 

 some abnormal forms (e.g. fig. 631, D) in which the ovules occur on 

 elongated pedicels, but they are borne singly and the micropyle is 

 directed outwards, while in Beania the ovules are attached in pairs 

 to the inner face of a distal expansion. There is no conclusive evi- 

 dence in support of either interpretation, though the general agree- 

 ment between the Jurassictype and the cones of recent Cycads would 

 seem to favour the inclusion of Beania among the Cycadophyta. 



A specimen described by Nathorst* from Upper Jurassic rocks 

 in the North of Scotland as Beania Carruthersi closely resembles 

 the type-species, differing chiefly in its smaller size and in the rather 

 closer arrangement of the sporophylls. The seed-like bodies 



1 Carruthers (69). ^ Lindley and Button (35) A. PI. 159. 



» Seward and Gowan (00) B. p. 143; Seward (00) B. p. 275, PI. ix. fig. 11. 



« Nathorst (02) p. 21, PI. I. figs. 14, 15. 



