XLVl] _ BRACHYPHYLLITM 315 



pieces of vegetative organs and in one case a cone to Aihrotaxis, 

 but the evidence on which the species Athrotaxis (?) subulata^ is 

 founded has Uttle value. 



BRACHYPHYLLUM. Brongniart. 



Brongniart^ proposed this name for a Jurassic species, Brachy- 

 phyllum mamillare, founded on sterile branches characterised by- 

 pinnate branching in one plane and spirally disposed appressed 

 leaves with a thick lamina of triangular, conical, or hexagonal form. 

 He afterwards* extended the term to other Jurassic species and 

 called attention to the striking resemblance of the fossil shoots to 

 those of Athrotaxis. The photograph of Athrotaxis cupressoides 

 shown in fig. 701 (p. 150) affords a very good idea of the habit of 

 Brachyphyllum. Specimens in which the pinnate ramification is a 

 conspicuous feature are more like shoots of Thuya or Gupressus, and 

 on the smaller branches the leaves may assume a decussate arrange- 

 ment. On older branches the leaves are often hexagonal and more 

 or less convex, while on the branchlets they are more triangular or 

 conical and are free at the apex, which in some forms is bent out- 

 wards from the axis (fig. 756). In nearly all cases specimens 

 referred to Brachyphylluln are sterile and, except in examples 

 where the preservation of the cones is too imperfect to afford any 

 evidence of morphological characters, it is suggested that the 

 generic aame should be reserved for sterile branches and regarded 

 as purely provisional. As Saporta* points out in his account of the 

 genus, considerable confusion has been caused by attempts to 

 assign species to. several positions in the Coniferales on wholly 

 insufficient evidence. Unger^ figured a fertile specimen from the 

 Rhaetic rocks of Franconia, which he referred to Brachyphyllum 

 speciosum Miinst., and this was re-figured by Schenk^ as Palissya 

 aperta though as others have pointed out the cones are very 

 different from those of Palissya: as Nathorst' says, they have the 

 characters of the genus Elatides, and the same is true of some cones 

 figured by Saporta^ and assigned by him to Brachyphyllum. The 

 name Elatides is reserved for specimens characterised by a certain 



1 Gardner (86) p. 43, PI. xi. ^ Brongniart (28) A. p. 109. = Ibid. (49) A. p. 69. 



4 Saporta (84) p. 310. * Unger (49) PI. v. figs. 3, 4. 



« Sohenk (67) A. PI. xlii. figs. 1—13. ' Nathorst (97) p. 34. 



8 Saporta (84) PI. 165, fig. 1; PI. 167, figs. 2, 3; PI. 171, figs. 7—9. 



