38 



BRITISH EOCENE FLORA. 



scales are generally detached and scattered. They were doubtless shed, as in existing 

 Sequoias, with the scales gaping after losing the seed, but still attached to the 

 branchlets. Several seeds were stated by Heer to have left their impressions under the 

 scales, and there were probably three to five under each scale, as in S. sempervirens. 

 They are variously shaped, ovate, flattened, denticulated at the apex, emarginated at the 

 base, and winged laterally. The best of the cones from Bovey and Hempstead remaining 

 in our national museums are figured on PL VI. None of these appear to be exactly 

 those figured by Heer, which, though collected at the same time, appear to have been since 

 lost. The restoration at pi. x, 'Phil. Trans.,' I. c, was pieced together from a number 

 of fragments ; and, while delineating the diff'erent characteristics of the foliage, can hardly 

 be thought to convey the mode of growth, which was probably free and graceful, dense, 

 and somewhat pendulous. The remains still existing, and which are figured, do not con- 

 clusively establish the accuracy of its reference to Sequoia. Its station, from its constant 

 association with remains of a marsh-loving Osmunda, was evidently swampy ; and this 

 is at variance with the habits of either existing species. 



A large number of remains from the Tertiaries of other countries have been referred 

 to S. Couttsice. Many of these, however, clearly belong to another species. 



The foliage from Disco and from the whole northern regions is, even where smallest, 

 more than double the size of that of S. Couttsice, while the average terminal branchlets 

 from Bovey require magnifying four or five times to equal those collected by Whymper^ 

 or those deposited in the British Museum by McClintock. The cones also are consider- 

 ably larger, exceeding an inch and a quarter in length ; and, although making the dif- 

 ference appear less, Heer says, " This greater length certainly arises from the scales having 

 partly separated from their axis," most of the Bovey cones are in a similar condition, 

 and it is difficult, if not impossible, to lengthen those of recent Sequoias, by compression. 

 In Plate VI, I have figured for comparison the largest foliage of 8. Coiittsia from Bovey 

 (fig. 7), and the smallest of that called S. Couttsia from Greenland (fig. 18). The figures 

 in the ' Miocane baltische Flora,' pi. xiii, also by Heer, are, with one exception, equally 

 large, and the seeds scattered on the slabs with the foliage are two or three times larger 

 than those from Bovey. The supposed S. Couttsia; of Antrim is presumably the same 

 as the Greenland species. 



The very beautiful remains from Armissan, which Saporta has figured and described 

 under the name of S. Couttsia, y?iX. poJymorpha, possess decided characters which imply 

 rnore than a variety. Heer determined certain incomplete fragments from this locality as 8. 

 Couttsia, but the fine specimens described by Saporta" show that these are widely distinct. 

 At the base of each shoot there is, as in S. sewpervirens, a region of short, closely 

 imbricated, scale-like leaves ; the remaining leaves are long and linear, decurrent at the 

 base, and then free and slightly falcate. This is a growth unknown in the typical 8. 



1 ' Phil. Trans.,' 1869, pi. xli, figs. 1—9 ; xlii, fig. 1, p. 464. 



2 ' Le Sud-est de la France a I'epoque Tertiaire,' 2nd part, p. 193, pi. ii, fig. 2. 



