268 



ARAUCARINEAE 



[CH. 



A. Sternbergii. The latter species is recorded also by Massalongo^ 

 from Eocene rocks in Italy and on imperfect evidence by Heer^ 

 from Switzerland. Gardner^ describes several good specimens of 

 vegetative shoots from the Eocene flora of Bournemouth which 

 he names Araucarites Goepperti Sternb. though the specific name 

 Sternbergii would be more appropriate 

 as that designation was first applied 

 to similar branches from Haring and 

 A. Goepperti was founded on a de- 

 tached cone. Two small pieces of 

 larger specimens in the British Mu- 

 seum from Bournemouth are repre- 

 sented in fig. 741 in illustration of the 

 very close resemblance of the leaves 

 to those of recent species. Gardner 

 draws attention to the similarity of 

 some of the fossil examples to deci- 

 duous shoots of Araucaria Cunning- 

 hamii : with reference to the absence 



of cones or cone-scales he quotes the Fiq. 741. Araucarites Sternbergii. 

 fact, communicated to him by an (British Museum, V, 523; nat. 



observer in Madeira, that the foliage ^'^^■' 

 of A. Cunninghamii requires two or three days to sink while 

 mature seeds do not begin to sink before the fifth or sixth day, 

 so that in moving water shoots and seeds would necessarily be 

 deposited separately. 



Some of the fragments of branches described by Gardner as 

 Athrolaxis ( ? ) subulata* may well belong to Araucarites. It must 

 be admitted that in the case of the English specimens, as in many 

 others, the use of the generic name Araucarites is based on the 

 evidence of vegetative branches only, but Gardner correctly states 

 that in the shoots of similar habit referred to Cryptomeria the 

 leaves are straighter, and moreover the presence on some of the 

 shoots of the latter of persistent cones like those of Cryptomeria 

 japonica constitutes a clear distinction. Having regard to the 

 very striking resemblance of the widely spread Tertiary specimens 



^ Massalongo (59) Pis. v. — vn. 



' Gardner (86) p. 55, PI. xi. fig. 1 ; PI. xn. 



Heer (55) A. PI. xxi. fig. 5. 

 Ibid. PI. XI. 



