432 CONIFEEALBS INCERTAE SEDIS [CH. 



attached linear leaves slightly more than 2 cm. long and 1-8 mm. 

 broad, basally contracted, with an acute apex. It closely resembles 

 shoots of recent Taxeae and Sequoia sempervirens, also some Potomac 

 species included by Fontaine^ in Cephalotaxopsis though there is 

 no evidence of relationship to the recent Cephalotaxus . Shoots of 

 similar habit are figured by Feistmantel^ from Indian Jurassic beds 

 as Taxites planus but the lamina is not contracted at the base. 

 Two of Feistmantel's figured specimens are reproduced in fig. 802. 

 These afford good examples of fossil branches which it has been 

 the custom to refer to Taxites, hut without information with regard 

 to the epidermal characters it is impossible to determine their 

 affinities. The form of the leaf-bases agrees with that shown in 

 fig. 803 and it is probable that Taxites planus may be another 

 example of Miss Holden's genus Retinosporites, though in the 

 absence of anatomical data Elatocladus is the more appropriate 

 designation. 



RETINOSPORITES. Holden. 



Feistmantel used the name Palissya for some Indian Jurassic 

 vegetative coniferous shoots which afford no evidence of affinity 

 to that genus as represented by P. Braunii. Some of his fossils 

 may be identical with the British species Taxites zamioides, now 

 assigned to Elatocladus, while the examples described by Feist- 

 mantel as Palissya sp. and Palissya indica have been transferred 

 to a new genus Retinosporites. The Indian impressions afford no 

 evidence of a midrib; the upper epidermis consists of cells with 

 straight walls and there are no stomata, while on the lower face 

 of the lamina stomata are irregularly scattered, the long axis of 

 the guard-cells being more or less parallel to the margin of the 

 leaf. The absence of a midrib, at least so far as regards-impressions 

 and cuticular preparations, led Miss Holden^ to separate the Indian 

 specimens from Palissya and Taxites as vegetative shoots included 

 by authors in genera having leaves with a distinct median vein 

 and in which the stomata are in rows on the lower surface. The 

 generic name Retinosporites, spelt by Miss Holden Retinosporitis, 

 is proposed on the ground that the only flat-leaved Conifers among 



1 Fontaine (89) B. Pis. cvi.— cvm. 2 feistmantel (79) Pis. xm.— xv. 



3 Holden, R. (15^). 



