Cunning hatnia sinensis. 599 
Dr. Arthur Hollick and the present writer have been engaged for some time 
on a Monograph of the Coniferales from the Lower Cretaceous beds of 
Kreischerville, Staten Island, N.Y., which is now in the press. The 
generally accepted view in regard to Sequoia is that it appeared geologically 
at a very early period and antedated Pinus. Remains, which have been 
referred by Zeiller and others to Sequoia , from their external features alone, 
are found as far back as the Jurassic, and in the Cretaceous such fossils 
become exceedingly numerous. As a result of the study of material with 
structure preserved, both of leafy twigs and cone-scales, we have come 
to the conclusion that the forms from the Cretaceous, which have been 
referred to Sequoia as well as to the somewhat similar genus Geinitzia , are 
really not of Taxodineous affinities at all but are Araucarian Conifers. 
This conclusion has been reached not only because the species in question 
show no Taxodineous features, but from the much more important con- 
sideration that the internal organization both of the twigs and cone-scales is 
entirely Araucarian. It is significant in this connexion to note that the 
foliage shoots, referred subsequently to Sequoia and Geinitzia , were 
originally put, on account of their habit, under the genus Araucarites. 
Indeed, it would not occur to any one familiar with the foliage shoot of 
the living 5. gigantea to refer to it the leafy twigs, with four-sided falcate 
leaves, of the Sequoia Reichenbachii and Geinitzia types ; the reference 
in fact seems to have resulted from the discovery of the cones of these 
Mesozoic forms, which present a superficial, although by no means 
a detailed resemblance to those of Sequoia. We have also shown in the 
memoir already referred to that a number of other well-known Cretaceous 
or Mesozoic genera, commonly referred to Taxodineous or Cupressineous 
affinities, such as Thuyites , Widdringtonites , Brachyphyllum , Frenelopsis , 
Newberry, and in all probability Voltzia as well, are in reality Araucarian 
Conifers, and have no close relationship with any of the modern species 
which they simulate in habit. There is in fact no structural evidence, 
in view of these newly discovered facts, for the occurrence of the living 
Sequoia earlier than the Tertiary, since it is only from this level that woods 
of the true Sequoia type have been described by Knowlton, Penhallow, and 
others. It of course follows, unless there were other better authenticated 
representatives of the Taxodineae and Cupressineae in the Mesozoic, 
that neither of these groups could possibly have furnished the ancestry 
of Pinus , which is geologically so very much older. It is true that there are 
numerous Cupressinoxyla in the upper Mesozoic, but there is no good 
reason to regard these as having belonged to the Cupressineae or Taxodi- 
neae, rather than to the Podocarpineae. We have never found twigs with 
this type of wood structure, in the Kreischerville deposits, with their leaves 
attached. This fact rather points to the woods in question having belonged 
to the Podocarpineae. 
