Edwards .- — Fossil Coniferous Wood from Kerguelen Island . 613 
simple pit occurs in the field ’, includes the species doubtfully in the compre- 
hensive genus Mesembrioxylon. As far as my observations go, wherever 
the field pitting is preserved there are almost invariably (at any rate in the 
spring wood) two small pits with a broadly elliptical horizontal pore (Text- 
fig. 3). The type sections are rather thick in places, and bordered pits 
on the tracheides overlying the rays might appear to be single pits in the 
field, but, since the wood is very transparent, the pair of smaller pits as just 
described may frequently be seen by focusing up and down. The Museum 
collection contains many fragments from the large specimen (Slide V. 332), 
and, as they split up very easily, it is possible to separate out the individual 
medullary rays. Such rays usually show faint vertical lines marking the 
Text-fig. 2. Cupressinoxy- 
lon antarcticum. Tangential longi- 
tudinal section showing a partly 
biseriate ray with adjoining paren- 
chyma. Slide V. 136164:. 
Radial longitudinal section to show medullary ray pitting. 
Slide V. 332 b. 
lines of contact of the tracheides, and the field thus marked off usually con- 
tains two small pits in the early wood, ora single one in the late wood; the 
pore is more or less circular, but never vertically elongated. It therefore 
seems best to retain this species in the genus Cupressinoxylon. It differs in 
several respects from the Kerguelen species, notably in the height of the 
rays and the tangential pitting of the tracheide walls as well as in the 
field pitting. . 
C. Hookeri appears to resemble fairly closely C. P citagonicum, Con- 
wentz ( 1884 , p. 441), which is described as having one or two round or 
elliptical pits in the field. There are no other well-preserved examples 
of Cupressinoxylon from the Southern Hemisphere, for C. latiporosum , 
Conwentz, is included by Gothan in the genus P hyllocladoxylon. 
