MACKIE — " DliAQON-TllEE " OP THE KENTISH HAG. 403 



feeling tlie requirements of the growing family above, expand their circle 

 of support below ; the trunk that had been cylindrical becomes a broad- 

 based cone. An opening is made on one side. We look in and find a 

 mere hollow. In the centre of that void there stood the original tree ; it 

 is gone now, as completely as any of the early progenitors of annuals grow- 

 ing in our gardens. Hence some explanation of the hollow interior of the 

 great Dragon-tree. It is a physiological necessity." 



As the Maidstone specimen in the British Museum has never 

 been published, we give a representation of the most characteristic 

 part in Plate XXII. Mr. Carruthers, of the Botanical Department 

 of the British Museum, is disposed to think that it is the bifurcation 

 of two branches. The specimen is no more than the cast in Kentish 

 ragstone of the original mould of the exterior in that stratum, and 

 is valuable only as showing those ribbings and small and peculiar pit- 

 tings on the surface which accord with the like but fainter ribbings and 

 ])ittings on the surface of the recent Draccjena draco. The fragment 

 figured is one-third natural size, and one of several piecers, of which 

 another measures 11 inches in length by 4^ in diameter ; a third, 16 

 inches by about the same thickness. In these, portions apparently of 

 cavernous wood are found within the exterior rim of bark, and at 

 places seem to show structure. The opportunity has not yet been 

 afforded me of examining this structure minutely, but I hope Mr. 

 Henry "Woodward will accede to my wish, that a section of the speci- 

 men should be made, and that he will furnish us with some account 

 of its peculiarities. I draw attention to this specimen, for all the 

 pieces are parts of the same branch, not with any wish or purpose of 

 disputing its right to its generic name, — notwithstanding that rests on 

 those very fragile grounds, mere external resemblance, — but because 

 at present it seems to stand alone, as representing the Liliaceae in the 

 Secondary period, and we have no record of this class that I remem- 

 ber in any of our Tertiary deposits. 



It might be well however to look to the Pandanaceae, or screw- 

 pines, before even, on the evidence before us, it is accepted as certain 

 that this Greensand fossil rightly belongs to Dracaena. The recent 

 JBandanus amaryllifolius, Boxb., the P. Qdoratissimus of Eastern 

 Asia, and an undescribed species collected by Mr. Bobert Brown, 

 have all, more or less, somewhat similar but perhaps harsher and 

 coarser ribbings and pittings ; and it should not be forgotten, that from 

 the Inferior Oolite of Charuworth in Dorsetshire we have the Podo- 

 cnrija BiicJdandi referred to the Pandancre in ]\[orris's catalogue, 

 but ])laced by Professor Phillij)s, in his ' Manual,' with the CycadciB. 

 There is another reason for looking to this class, namely, the conical 



