Geology and Mineralogy. 331 



and Menge and published in 1883, the other begun by them but 

 chiefly the work of Dr. Conwentz after their death, appearing in 

 1886. The present work is preliminary to another in preparation 

 which is to illustrate the occurrence in amber of great numbers 

 of cryptogamic and spore-bearing plants not hitherto treated in 

 any of the books. But the manner in which these forms occur, 

 chiefly as parasites or saprophytes upon or in the tissues of the 

 amber trees, seemed to necessitate a special treatise setting forth 

 the pathological and teratological aspects of the amber flora, and 

 from this treatise we learn that that flora differed radically in this 

 respect from any living flora, and that, in the language of the 

 author "the pathologic was the rule, the normal the exception !" 

 The treatment is in the highest degree elaborate and exhaustive, 

 and too great praise cannot be bestowed upon the unstinted man- 

 ner in which the Natural History Society of Danzig, supported 

 by the West Prussian Provincial Landtag, has brought out these 

 monographs. l. f. w. 



9. Ueber die Fructification von JBennettites Gibsonianus Carr.; 

 von H. Grafen zu Solms-Lattbach. Botanische Zeitung, vol. 

 xlviii, Leipzig, 1890, col. 789-798; 805-817; 821-833; 843-847, 

 pi. ix, x. Also separate. — In this paper Count Solms has care- 

 fully worked over all the material from the Portland beds show- 

 ing the fructification of cycadean plants, including considerable 

 that was not known to Buckland, Robert Brown, Mantell, Corda 

 and Carruthers at the time they published. The results reached 

 are very important in disproving the view of Nathorst that the 

 supposed fruiting portions are of parasitic origin, and also in 

 showing, contrary to the theory of the Marquis Saporta relative 

 to the progymnospermic nature of the Mesozoic Cycadaceae, that 

 the fruiting aggregations of Bennettites represent a relatively 

 high type of inflorescence, reminding us rather of certain dicotyle- 

 donous types, such as that of the Composite or the Monimiacege. 

 This interesting result is confirmatory of the law observed in so 

 many other groups that the ancient types of vegetation advanced 

 in their highest expressions far beyond the degree of development 

 presented by the living forms of the same types, so that the 

 latter have to be regarded as survivals of their earlier and not of 

 their later stages. l. f. w. 



10. Die fossile Flora von Schonegg bei Wies in Steiermark / 

 von Prof. Dr. Constanttn Freiherrn von Ettingshausen. I. 

 Theil. Denkschr. cl. math.-naturw. CI. d. k. Akad. d. Wiss. Wien, 

 Bd. LVII, Wien, 1890, 52 pp. 4 pi. Also separate. — Another 

 rich Miocene flora has come to light in Styria to be added to 

 those of Parschlug, Leoben, Gleichenberg, Koflach and Sotzka. 

 The present paper contains the Cryptogams, Gymnosperms, 

 Monocotyledons and Apetalge, in which groups the author de- 

 scribes over one hundred and fifty species. The number of 

 Cryptogams, amounting to twenty-five, is especially noteworthy, 

 considering their paucity in other similar floras. A large pro- 

 portion of the forms here enumerated had already been found in 



