I 2 I 
Abietineae (?) from the Cretaceous of New Zealand. 
characters of the wood, they indicate differences which may be important, 
while Gothan himself accentuates the Abietinean affinity of his two fossils. 
Gothan’s species Pro tocedroxylon araucarioides is identified by Holden 
(see Holden, 1913, pp. 538 - 9 ) in the Jurassic of Yorkshire, and re-named 
by her Metacedroxylon araucarioides , regardless of the laws of nomenclature, 
and without diagnosing her new genus. In the same ‘ genus 5 she has quite 
recently (Holden, 1915) included a new species, M. scoticum , Holden, though 
in her description she states that ‘ the pits of the tracheids are confined to 
the radial wall, where they are strictly uniseriate ’, and that in the medullary 
rays the transverse walls are thick and heavily pitted, and ‘ radially there 
are one, or less frequently, two, half-bordered pits to each cross field, similar 
to those of P odocarpus , or certain species of Pinus ’. As she has not 
diagnosed her genus, and as her figures of the new species do not illustrate 
some most important details of the rays, it is impossible to determine how 
closely her new wood is allied to Gothan’s species Protocedroxylon araucari - 
oides , and, consequently, to our own new genus. 
Affinities. 
I have so recently, and at some length, gone into the diagnostic value of 
various details of wood structure (see Stopes, 1915) that I do not wish now 
to reopen the extensive discussions involved. In connexion with the two 
interesting forms now described, it will suffice to recall the fact that there are 
those who lay chief stress on the tracheide pitting (and this group includes 
many of the older workers, Lignier, 1907, and at present principally Professor 
Jeffrey and his school, with their faith in the c bars of Sanio ’) ; and the other 
workers who, in the main, lay greater stress on the details of ray structures. 
While finding no single character infallible, I have observed, both in living 
and fossil forms, such a remarkable specific stability of character in the 
details of the ray, that in my opinion Gothan’s work in drawing attention to 
the ray structures (see Gothan, 1905, ’07, ’10) is invaluable. And I incline 
(in spite of certain exceptional cases), where the evidence from different 
details conflicts, to give greater weight to ray-structures as indicators of 
systematic position than to any other single feature. 
The presence of such medullary rays as have just been described 
and figured in the two Mesozoic fossils under consideration, therefore, in my 
opinion, renders it impossible for the plants to have been either Araucarians 
in a modern sense, or closely allied to the complex of ‘ Dadoxylon ’ forms 
(Cordaitean-Araucarian), highly suggestive of this affinity though the 
tracheide-pitting may be. It should be remarked that in the species 
of Araucariopitys and other such forms described as having a mixture 
of Araucarian and Abietinean features, the ‘ Araucarian ’ features of the 
tracheides are minute and often debatable points in the characters of 
the single row of pits. Now in the new fossil we have much less debatably, 
