Wieland — Williamsonian Tribe. 



449 



nate search for " Pracht-Stucke" had mostly ended by 1835 or 

 40 without the careful establishment of quarries, and without 

 attention having been directed to the abundant and important 

 smaller fruits and disks of other species of Williamsonia, which 

 the visits of Nathorst first in 1879, and then in 1907, fol- 

 lowed by that of his associate Halle, have brought to light. 

 So that for quite thirty years previous to the study of Cyca- 

 deoidea, which again so pointedly directed attention to the 



Fio. 7. 



Fig. 7. Williamsonia gigas. x 1/2. Bract-enclosed strobilar casts fur- 

 ther illustrating the sharp outlines characteristic of these fossils and their 

 abundance. (Yale— James Yates Collection.) 



Yorkshire coast fossils, the original and more or less scattered 

 collections of Williamsonian fruits failed of addition, and came 

 to be regarded as mere assemblages of rare fossils of uncertain 

 affinity and even minor interest. The more especially so after 

 Saporta's decision that the ovulate cones were Pandanus-like, 

 just as Buckland originally surmised in the Bridgewater Trea- 



rounding the embryo, an interesting point which leads me to suspect it to 

 be some Williamsonian form. Just once in his plate legends Buckland refers 

 to the seeds as calcified with the lunate bodies dark ; but from the remark- 

 able conservation of the isolated specimen, it is likely to have been silicified, 

 such fossils often having a whitish exterior, that without further test could 

 deceive even a practiced eye. 



