145 
Tree ( Ginkgo biloha , L.). 
Baiera , although not absolutely conclusive, is almost con¬ 
vincing. Heer has figured isolated seeds associated with 
Ginkgo leaves and a few specimens in which seeds appear 
to be attached to peduncles, but the examples are far 
from perfect. Detached seeds are not uncommon in the 
English Jurassic rocks, and these appear to be identical with 
those borne by the Beania type of flower; they are charac¬ 
terized by the possession of a fleshy integument which in 
the fossil state presents a wrinkled appearance. Beania 
gracilis is constructed on the same plan as the male flowers 
of Ginkgo , and differs from the female flowers of the recent 
species in the greater number of ovules and in the manner 
in which the ovules are attached to the peduncle. The 
ovules of Beania are attached to the inner side of the ex¬ 
panded end of each pedicel or carpophyll. If we imagine 
the ovules of Ginkgo turned through an angle of i8o° we 
have the collar-like envelope occupying the same position 
as the peltate expansion in Beania. Some of the abnormal 
flowers of Ginkgo, such as those figured by Fujii 1 and that 
shown in Fig. 5, PI. IX, approach more closely to the Beania 
type, and it is not improbable that these examples indicate 
ancestral features, as Celakovsky 2 has suggested. Without 
wishing to overstrain such arguments as may be adduced in 
favour of this view, we prefer to regard Beania gracilis as 
a female flower, which was more probably borne by a plant 
belonging to the Ginkgoaceae than by a member of the true 
Cycadaceae. 
Some isolated seeds from the London Clay of Sheppey 
have been doubtfully referred to Gingko under the name 
Ginkgo ? eocenica z , but these are in themselves insufficient 
as evidence of the existence of the genus in the Sheppey 
deposits. 
The records of fossil wood do not materially assist us in our 
review of the geological history of Ginkgo. The Tertiary 
wood named by Goppert Physematopitys Salisburioides 4 , and 
1 Fujii (’96). 2 Celakovsky 1 (’90). 
3 Gardner (’83), p. 46 . * Goppert (’52), p. 270 . 
L 
