70 



BRITISH EOCENE ELORA. 



The remains of this fine species are very perfect and abundant. 



The cones vary from seventy to ninety millimetres in length and twenty to thirty 

 millimetres in diameter, — are cylindrical, tapering slightly towards the apex, rounded or 

 rarely truncate at base, — and composed of between 120 and 140 scales. The scales are 

 about twenty-five millimetres long, and ten to fifteen wide, but much smaller towards the 

 extremities ; the heads are sub-hexagonal or rounded on the upper margin, wider than 

 high, flattened, with slightly elevated but distinct transverse ridges across the centre, 

 culminating in a small, lozenge-shaped umbo, with traces of an ill-defined central tubercle. 

 The cones are usually detached, more rarely in twos, and in the fine specimen (PL XV, 

 fig. 3) obtained by Mr. Stewart, F.L.S., for the Belfast Museum, three are clustered 

 together, appearing to grow upward and parallel to the stem. The seeds are oval and 

 moderately large, about five milUmetres in length or twenty millimetres, including their 

 almost parallel-sided, rectangular wing (PI. XVII, figs. 2, 3, 5, 8). The leaves are two 

 in a sheath, rather slender, from ten to fifteen centimetres in length, and are often found 

 in dense tufts adhering to the branchlets. The branchlets (PI. XV, figs. 3 and 4) are 

 closely inlaid with crowded and symmetrical leaf-scars, exhibiting the usual seasonal 

 variations. A fragment of bark with larger scars is represented (fig. 7 of the same plate). 



The scales of the cones are mostly closed, in which case very little lignitic matter 

 remains, and the specimens are in the form of compressed hollow cavities exhibiting perfect 

 moulds of the exterior of the cone. The example upon which P. Graingeri was founded 

 was merely the shrunken lignitic matter out of one of these cavities. In other cases the 

 cones had gaped, and the matrix has infiltrated between the scales, either filling the 

 spaces left vacant by the shedding of the seeds, or replacing them with soft mud, 

 prior to the decay of the woody tissue of the cone itself. Some examples found in this 

 condition are certainly cones of Finns Plutonis, for impressions of the thickened ends of 

 the scales can be traced out, but in the specimens figured (PI. XVI, figs. 5, 6, 7, 17), 

 I have been unable to trace any thickening, and either therefore their more solid 

 parts decayed Avhile the matrix was too plastic to retain an impression, or the 

 cones had thin scales and were aUied to Tsuga. Their size and general form, and 

 that of the seed, favour the former alternative. Heer described in 1855 cones 

 similarly preserved in white sandstone from the Lausanne Tunnel {Pinus Lardyana, 

 ' Elora Tert. Helv.,' vol. i, p. 58, pi. xx, fig. 5), and those I have figured from Sheppey 

 (PI. XIV, figs. 3 and 8) illustrate a stage in the process of decay in which nothing of the 

 cone remains but the clustered seeds and the axis. In the Ballypalady cones a further 

 stage has been reached in which the axis also has disappeared, and only casts of the seed- 

 cavities remain. In this condition little resemblance to Pine cones is at first sight 

 apparent, except the arrangement of the seeds in pairs. Cones in this condition have 

 obviously no palaeontological interest, and I should barely have referred to them were it 

 not probable that similar specimen's from Greenland have been mistaken for cones of 

 Magnolia. Two such, brought from Greenland by Mr. Whymper (Heer, ' Flor. foss. 



