S topes. — A New Araucarioxylon from New Zealand. 349 
rings. Their slight irregularities are only those to be found any day in 
a fir or pine trunk which has grown normally in a climate with well-marked 
seasons like our own. 
The value of growth rings in the Gymnosperms, where the foliage is 
evergreen, is very much greater than in the Angiosperms, where they may 
be due to simple leaf-fall, which, as we know from plants now growing in 
the tropics, may take place irrespective of the seasons. Gothan (’08) in 
his paper dealing with the climates of the Jurassic and Cretaceous epoch 
lays much stress on this. 
Such an appearance as seen in Photos 1 and 3 in an Araucarian, 
therefore, makes the presumption in favour of the existence of well-marked 
seasons where it was growing an exceedingly strong one. 
Summary. 
The specimen is petrified in an interesting manner, with a central core 
of silicified tissues surrounded by wood preserved in mineral carbonates. 
It is described as a new species because it differs greatly from the 
more imperfect specimens of fossil Araucarians hitherto recorded from 
that region. 
It is marked out from all other fossils of the kind by the extreme 
development of its rows of thickened tracheides on either side of the rays, 
which are filled with large ‘ resin-spools ’. 
It has also much more regular and strongly marked annual rings than 
are customary in Araucarians. 
It is held to afford good evidence that the region, now New Zealand, 
had well-marked seasons in Mid-Cretaceous times. 
Papers referred to. 
Ettingshausen, Baron C. von (’87) : Beitrage zur Kenntniss der fossilen Flora Neuseelands. 
Denkschriften K. Akad. Wiss. Wien, vol. liii, pp. 143-192, Pis. I-IX. 
(’91) : Contributions to the Knowledge of the Fossil Flora of 
New Zealand. Trans. New Zealand Institute, vol. xxiii (for 1890), pp. 237-310, 
Pis. XXIV-XXXIII. [Descriptions of species translated from the Denkschrift. K. Akad. 
Wiss. Wien, vol. liii, 1887.] 
Gothan, W. (’08) : Die Frage der Klimadifferenzierung im Jura und in der Kreideformation im 
Lichte palaeobotanischer Tatsachen. Jahrb. K. Preuss. Geol. Anst., vol. xxix, pp. 220-42, 
Pis. XVI-XIX. 
Jeffrey, E. C. (T2) : The History, Comparative Anatomy and Evolution of the Araucarian type. 
Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts and Sci., vol. xlviii, No. 13, pp. 531-40. Pis. I-IV. 
Lignier, O. (’07) : Vegetaux fossiles de Normandie, IV. Bois divers. Univers. Caen., Mem. Soc. 
Linn. Normand., vol. xxii, pp. 239-332, Pis. XVII-XXIII. 
Penhallow, D. P. (’07) : A Manual of the North American Gymnosperms, exclusive of the 
Cycadales, but together with certain Exotic Species. Boston, 1907. Pp. 374, Pis. LV. 
