204 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST (Vor. XL 
CONCLUSIONS 
The cone-scales referred by Heer to Dammara, at least in the 
case of those from Kreischerville, do not belong to that genus but 
to the hitherto unrecognized Araucarinean genus Protodammara. 
The leafy shoots and branches from several eastern American 
Cretaceous beds referred by various authors to Brachyphyllum' 
are of Araucarian affinities, as shown by their structure and as 
indicated by their constant association with the cone scales of 
Protodammara. 
A large part of the lignites associated with both the above are 
Araucarineous and probably represent in part the wood of the 
trees which bore the leafy branches of Brachyphyllum and the 
cones of Protodammara. 
The latter genus was in all probability the last survivor of an 
ancient Araucarian line of descent, joined near its base with the 
primitive stocks of the Abietineous and Cupressineous series. _ Its. 
anatomical characters show that it was forced to occupy less 
advantageous situations in Cretaceous times, and possibly in 
earlier periods as well. It may have grown on dry hills, while 
the better adapted related forms, which still survive in the modern 
genera Araucaria and Dammara, flourished in the richer lowlands, 
in company with other gymnosperms of higher type of develop- 
ment and with the angiosperms, which even then had begun to 
assume the predominant position which they occupy to-day. 
some Coniferous remains recently described by M. Zeiller, from the upper 
Lias of Madagascar and referred to Sequoiineous affinities. In this instance 
the cones were found attached to the branches and the author remarks that 
the superior portion of the cone scale terminates “en une pointe obtuse- 
ment aigue’’, a somewhat suspicious feature of resemblance to our Pro- 
todammara. 
