384 
MR. CLEMENT REID ON PARADOXOCARPUS CAR1NATUS. 
lateral ; keeled dorsally and more or less covered externally with 
elongated tubercles or irregular ridges. Exocarp not preserved in 
the English specimens, and extremely rare in those from Germany, 
apparently coriaceous and similar to that of Naias (which also 
is only occasionally preserved in fossil specimens). Endocarp 
indehiscent, but on decay splitting first dorsally then ventrally (as 
in Naias). Connecting groove running obliquely through endocarp 
nearly to the apex. Seed pendulous, testa membranous with an 
excrescence or aril (the “caruncula” of Potonie) near or on the 
funic! e. The British specimens of Paradoxocarpus carinatus vary 
considerably among themselves in size, rugosity, and thickness of 
the endocarp ; the German specimens appear to be more uniform, 
but scarcely distinguishable from the average fruit found in Norfolk. 
After Mr. Carruthers and I had, without satisfactory result, 
compared this fruit with a variety of recent plants, I sent some 
specimens to Sir Joseph Hooker, who under date May 24th, 1887, 
writes (in lit.) : “Prof. Oliver A I have given our best attention to 
your curious seeds & fruits from the Cromer beds, but we are, I am 
sorry to say, quite unable to hazard a guess as to their true position 
Possibly they may have been gigantic Naiadeae to 
which such fruit might belong, e.ij., Zannichellia .” 
Later on I found that there was a striking resemblance between 
the bolster-shaped fruit and another smaller undetermined endocarp 
from the Cromer Forest-bed, and that there was also a more distant 
resemblance with the so-called Folliculites of the Oligoccne strata of 
the Isle of Wight. It was not, however, till last year that I learnt 
from Professor Nathorst that the smaller endocarps from the 
Cromer Forest-bed had been determined by Dr. Gunnar Andersen 
to belong to Naias marina. 
Professor Nehring (op. cit.) mentions that many botanists, to 
whom he sent specimens of the fruit from Klinge, placed them 
in the genus Zannichellia , whilst others thought that they were 
allied to Naias ; Professor Nathorst suggested a relationship with 
The same fruit has also been discovered by Dr. C. Weber in lacustrine 
deposits filling hollows in the Boulder Clay in Holstein (“Vorlaufige 
Mittheilung Liber neuc Boobaohtungeu an den interglacialen Torflagcrn dcs 
westlichen Holsteins,” ‘Neues Jahrb. i'Lir Mineralogie, 5 etc., 1893, bd. 1, 
pp. 94—96). 
