Remarks on the Organization of the Cones of 
Williamsonia gigas (L. & H.). 
BY 
THE LATE E. A. NEWELL ARBER, M.A., Sc.D., F.L.S., 
Trinity College , Cambridge , University Demonstrator in Palaeobotany , 1 
With five Figures in the Text. 
AS is well known, the organization of the cones of Williamsonia gigas 
il (L. and H.) has remained a palaeobotanical puzzle since the days 
when Williamson 2 and Yates 3 first attempted that restoration independently 
in 1849. The memoirs which bear on this matter and have been published 
since that date must now approach, if they do not exceed, a hundred in 
number. A detailed account of these researches, with a full and up-to-date 
bibliography, has recently been given by Professor Seward, 4 so they need 
not be enumerated here. 
At the present time there is much which is still admittedly obscure in 
regard to the morphology of the cones of this plant. They have not yet 
been found with all their organs in continuity, and there seems unfortunately 
to be little likelihood of such incrustations being obtained in the near 
future. From analogy with Bennettites, we should expect that the micro- 
sporophylls in particular were fleeting, caducous organs, and thus the chance 
of obtaining specimens fossilized while these structures were mature and 
before they had been shed appears to be very small indeed. We must look 
forward rather to the happy discovery of petrified male cones of this or some 
similar species in the future, a discovery of which we need not despair, 
seeing that a female petrified cone of Williamsonia is now known. Con- 
siderable progress has, however, been made in the recognition of what is 
either the complete or the incomplete female cone, firstly by Lignier, 5 and 
more convincingly by Seward 6 quite recently. It may be well therefore to 
1 Owing to the author’s death before this paper was finally revised, the responsibility for any 
errors which it may contain rests with me. I have to acknowledge a grant from the Royal Society 
in aid of the preparation of this and other memoirs left by the author in various stages of comple- 
tion. — Agnes Arber. 
2 Williamson (1849). 3 Yates (1849). 
4 Seward (1917), vol. iii, chapter 37. 
6 Lignier (1903). 6 Seward (1917), vol. iii, pp. 429, &c. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXX 11 I. No. CXXX. April, 1919.] 
