i75 
Cones of Williamsonia gigas (L. & Hi). 
occurred on the same axis as the female organs. The cones which we now 
know to have been partly or wholly female had a long conical axis, the best 
illustrations of which are those of Saporta already referred to above. The 
shape of these axes is also shown in the restoration of the female cone given 
here in Figs, i and 2. Other cones, however, possessed a flask-shaped 
or urn-shaped axis as figured on Williamson’s PI. 52, Fig. 4 (refigured in 
outline here as Fig. 5, p. 177). The writer has also seen more than one 
other example of the same structures among the specimens of Williamsonia 
at Cambridge. The shape of this axis is entirely different from that of the 
female flower, and thus there are certainly grounds for very strong suspicion 
Fig. 1 . Restoration of female cone of Williamsonia gigas with the front bracts (per.) 
removed (half natural size). Fig. 2 . The same in section; 9 organs = interseminal scales 
or seeds. 
that this plant possessed two cones. None of the urn-shaped axes, regarded 
by the writer as male, ever show any trace of interseminal scales such as are 
almost always persistent at the base or apex or both regions of the female 
flower. Any organs which they bore were clearly attached apically, and it 
is difficult to imagine that they could have been other than the microsporo- 
phylls. 
Where were the Male Sporophylls attached? 
Perhaps the greatest difficulty in regard to the Williamsonian cone is 
to decide where the male sporophylls were attached. These organs are of 
course now exceedingly well known as detached objects. It should be 
remembered in this connexion that Nathorst, 1 to whom we owe our know- 
ledge of these organs in particular, has shown that they were borne terminally 
on something. The axis bearing them was not produced beyond the cup 
of united sporophylls. That fact is incontestable. The male sporophylls 
1 Nathorst, (1909) pp. 11 , 12 , (1911) p. 20 . 
