39 2 Jeffrey . — The Wound Reactions of Br achy phy llum. 
so far as we know, resin-canals appear in the wood of the stem only as the re- 
sult of injury. If the course of reasoning adopted in the case of the Abietineae 
and the genus Sequoia is correct, it may be assumed that Br achy phy llum 
has come from ancestry, which possessed ligneous resin-canals like those 
present in the living Pinas and its nearer allies, as well as in the fossil genus 
Pity oxy Ion Kraus. Ward has recently described a Triassic wood, which 
he names Araucarites monilifera (Monographs of the U.S. Geolog. Survey, 
48, pp. 33, 35, PL 3) in which moniliform flattened masses of a secretion are 
found in the wood. He interprets these as a fossil resin. Very much 
larger traumatic resin-canals than those found in Br achy phy llum would 
give rise to just such moniliform rows of ‘ tears 5 of resin. It is unfortunate 
that this wood has not yet been structurally determined. The abundant 
occurrence and large size of the resinous masses would point to a condition 
of resiniferous activity of the wood corresponding more to that found in 
Pinus and its allies, than to that found in the Cretaceous Brachyphylla 
described above. This more abundant secretion may indicate that the 
older Araucarineae were more copious in their resinous exudations than 
their descendants of the later Mesozoic. This question can only be 
settled when the Triassic woods just mentioned have been subjected 
to proper microscopic investigation. In any case they probably belong 
rather to Ullmannia than Brachyphyllum . The living Araucarian genera 
Agathis and Araucaria and their near relatives of the Cretaceous appear to 
hold the same phylogenetic position towards the genus Brachyphyllum 
(and in view of the conditions found in Ward’s Araucarites monilifera , 
possibly also to the older genus Ullmannia as well), as the cupressinoid 
genera as a whole occupy towards the very ancient genus Sequoia. For 
being of much more modern origin, they have quite lost the tendency 
to revert to the probable ancestral condition of the wood as a result of 
injury, which is found in Br achy phy limn. Such a conclusion would need, 
however, to be supported by structural and experimental morphological data 
derived from a study of fossil and living representatives of the Araucarineae, 
and especially the anatomical investigation of the leaves, cone scales, and 
reproductive axes of these, since such organs are more apt than others to retain 
vestigial features. Such evidence the writer hopes to supply in future articles. 
In a recent- memoir devoted to the Abietineae (op. cit.) the present 
writer has adduced arguments from the structure of the male and female 
gametophytes and from the structure and reactions of the sporophytes, for 
the conclusion that the Abietineae are a very ancient order of the Coni- 
ferales. This view is fortified by authentic data as to the ancient geological 
occurrence of cones referable to Pinus and Pinites (from the Jurassic on- 
wards) and more especially of woods referable to the genus Pityoxylon 
(from the Carboniferous and Permian onwards). To this evidence is added 
that of sufficiently numerous impressions of leaves, branches, &c. (from the 
