GYMNOSPERMtE. 



51 



bluntly rounded. The angle formed by the leaflets, which are often crowded and overlap, 

 averages about 20°, and their bases, as in many recent Conifers, are decurrent on 

 the stem until overlapped by the succeeding leaflet. The basis of their arrangement 

 seems spiral, though only the lateral leaflets are expanded, the rest being narrow and 

 closely pressed to the branchlets. In the smaller terminal shoots they are less in size, 

 more tapered and acute, and therefore to a slight extent intermediate between the 

 expanded and the imbricated foliage. This latter is loosely imbricated, spinous, recurved, 

 or falcate, often approaching the distichous type. 



An example of what is apparently the fruit of the species is shown in fig, 16 ; in 

 which case it must have been a small solitary berry on a short pendant stalk, as in 

 P. andina and some other Podocarps, and not terminal. Though rather crushed, the 

 characteristic footstalk seems to ally it to the section Dacrycarpus. 



Although by no means closely related to any known existing species, the specimens 

 recall P. ciq^ressina^ of Java and the Philippine Isles; particularly fig. 11, which agrees 

 most closely with it in the relative positions of the broad and scale-leaved shoots. It also 

 resembles P. tenuifoUa of New Caledonia, and other species, and the foliage bears a general 

 resemblance to that of Taxodium, but is more coriaceous. 



While there can be no reasonable doubt about most of the figured specimens belong- 

 ing to one species, some of them may belong to quite other Conifers,^ though they do not 

 afford characters which enable them to be definitely separated. None of the foliage 

 has been met with except at Alum Bay, and it differs from any of the similar kinds of 

 foliage from Bournemouth ; yet it is difficult to formulate any well-marked distinctions, 

 which would allow of isolated pieces being immediately recognised, when met with 

 elsewhere. The richer parts of the Alum Bay leaf-beds have now been washed away ; 

 and the two specimens with fruit were almost the last fossils obtained from it. 

 The only fossil resembling it is P. taxiformis. Sap., from Armissan. 

 De-la-IIarpe^ mentioned the occurrence of branches of Conifera3 at Alum Bay, 

 resembling Cupressites taxiformis, Ung., and Taxites Bosthorni, Ung. They were 

 described at greater length in the ' Memoirs of the Geological Survey, Isle of Wight,' 

 1862, p. Ill, by the same author, as Taxites, sp., and Cujjressites elegans, De-la-H. 

 The separation is made on slender characters, and the latter type is compared to Dacrydium 

 cupressifoUum.^ 



1 A large drupe, since discovered, seems to indicate a second Podocarpous species. 

 - 'Bull. Soc. Vaudoise des Sc. Nat.,' 1856. 



^ Ettingshausen, in his " Report on the Fossil Flora of Alum Bay to the Royal Society" ('Proceed. 

 Roy. Soc.,' 1880) introduced six species of Coniferse into his list, three of which were founded on material 

 now figured in the accompanying plate, two others on fragments which seem to be of a doubtful 

 coniferous character, while the si.xth has been here mentioned, p. 49, under Podocarpus eoccenica. 



