MACKIE — " DEAGON-TEEE " OF THE KEXTISH BAG. 403 
feeling the requirements of tlie growing family above, expand their circle 
of support below ; the trunk that had been C3'lindri('a] becomes a broad- 
based cone. An opening is made on one side. AYe 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 INIuseum, 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 
pittings on the surface of the recent Draccena draco. The fragment 
figured is one-third natural size, and one of several pieces, 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 INIr. 
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 Pandanacese, or screw- 
pines, before even, on the evidence before us, it is accepted as certain 
tliat this Grreensand fossil rightly belongs to Draca?ua. The recent 
Pandanus amaryllifolius, Eoxb., the P. odoratissimus of Eastern 
Asia, and an undescribed species collected by Mr. Eobert 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 Charnworth in Dorsetshire we have the Fodo' 
carya Bucklandi referred to the PandaneaB in Morris's catalogue^ 
but placed by Professor Phillips, in his ' Manual,' with the Cycadeae. 
There is another reason for looking to this class, namely, the conical 
