4 3 2 Solms-Lauback. — On the Fructification 
form and the median keel which gradually slopes towards the 
margins and projects on both surfaces, and gives the transverse 
section its characteristic shape. The block in the Museum 
at Kew may be specially mentioned as having a fine fracture 
of this kind, though the like may be seen also in other stems 
of Bennettiteae when the whole of the fruit-bearing shoot 
has decayed away or been broken off from the scale-armour, 
leaving only the basal internodes behind. The resulting 
funnel-shaped cavity is then lined with the narrowly lanceolate 
leaves. The reader is referred for this state of preservation 
to Carruthers’ figure of his Mantellia inclusa h The con- 
ditions here described are to be seen very distinctly in the 
original specimen of Bennettites maximus , Carr., in the Jermyn 
Street Museum in London. 
The cataphyllary leaves are similar in their internal 
structure to the leaf-bases of the armour of the stem. Here 
their fundamental parenchyma consists in all cases, not of 
thin-walled, but of stout cells thickened after the manner of 
scalariform tracheides, and incloses many broad cylindrical 
gum-receptacles which are much elongated longitudinally and 
contain a copious brown matter. One important difference 
is that each leaf has only three vascular bundles of delicate 
herbaceous texture and with a roundish transverse section ; 
the tissue is usually very badly preserved, and frequently 
shows nothing but a succession of empty spaces. The distinct 
epidermis is formed of one layer of very small cells. I have 
searched in vain for stomata in every slice. The section of 
one of these leaves given by Carruthers 2 is very true to nature, 
only the vascular bundles are not shown having been probably 
overlooked by the draughtsman ; there must have been one 
visible on the portion of the section represented in the figure. 
The peculiar paleaceous hairs (ramenta) of the leaf-bases 
of the stem are found, as has been already said, on the 
cataphyllary leaves, but they are fewer and smaller and very 
thin, and form intermediate layers which disappear in places 
1 Carruthers, loc. cit, pi. 63 ,fig. 3. 
3 Carruthers, loc. cit., pi. 60, fig. 6. 
