An Early Type of the Abietineae (?) from the 
Cretaceous of New Zealand. 
a 
BY 
MARIE C. STOPES, D.Sc., Ph.D., 
Fellow and Lecturer in Palaeobotany , University College , London. 
With Plate IV and seven Figures in the Text. 
S O little is known of the fossil plants of the Southern Hemisphere in 
general, and of New Zealand in particular, that the well-petrified tree- 
trunk from the Cretaceous of New Zealand in the British Museum offered 
an attractive subject for investigation. Its remarkable structure, which 
will be described in detail, consists of a striking mixture of Abietinean 
and Araucarian characters most unexpected in this locality, and affords 
an interesting addition to our knowledge of the structure and distribution 
of extinct Conifers. 
Last year I described an Araucarioxylon from the Cretaceous of 
Amuri Bluff, New Zealand, which had been sent me by Mr. J. Allan 
Thomson, Palaeontologist to the New Zealand Geological Survey (see 
Stopes, 1914 ). This prepared me to recognize the possibilities of the larger 
and similarly petrified trunk which I came across in the course of my work 
in the Geological Department of the British Museum (Natural History). It 
had the distinctive, black, largely silicified core surrounded by an outer zone 
of carbonates which was so noticeable in the Araucarioxylon. It was with 
much interest therefore that I learned from the Museum Register that the 
block had been sent to the Museum by the well-known Australasian geolo- 
gist Dr. Hector in 187 5, and that it also came from Amuri Bluff. Dr. Smith 
Woodward, F.R.S., kindly gave me permission to have the block cut and to 
describe it, and I am much indebted to him for his gracious and friendly 
provision of facilities for examining and studying the new specimen and the 
others in the Museum required for comparison. 
The specimen proved to be well preserved, and its anatomical features 
are of such peculiarity in their mixture of characters that it is necessary to 
found a new genus to contain it. 
The trunk is large, and is 1 50 years old or more ; the features it shows 
therefore are those of the mature wood, a point on which I lay stress, 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXX. No. CXVII. January, 1916.3 
