I.—On some Undescribed Coniferous Fruits from the Secondary Rocks of Britain

Abstract

In the paper on Coniferous Fruits I described in detail the structure of three cones which had originally been described as, and all. along believed to be, Cycadean. These cones were Zamiostrobus macrocephalus, Endl.; Z. ovatus, Göpp; and Z. Sussexiensis, Göpp. In making, in June last, a careful comparison between the version of M. Brongniart's important essay, “Exposition Chronologique des Périodes de Végétation et des Flores diverses qui se sont succédé a la surface de la Terre,” published in the Dict. univ. d’Hist. Nat. 1849, and the version in the Ann. des Sc. Nat., Ser. III., Vol. xi., p. 285, bearing the same date, but which evidently, from the occasional emendations, had had a careful and later revision by its learned author than the copy with which I had heretofore been working, I found that M. Brongniart had already referred two of the species to the genus Pinites. On a foot-note on pp. 317, 318 of the volume quoted he gives the following reason for this change: “Un échantillon de ce fruit (Zamiostrobus macrocephalus) qui vientde m’être communiqué par M. Wetherell, établit d’une m.anière bien positive que ce n’est pas un fruit de Zamia, mais un cône de Pinus ayant tous les caractères de ce genre, relativement à la forme et à la direction des écailes, et à la position des graines géminés a leur base. Quant au Z. Sussexiensis, son analogie avec le précédent me paraît évidente.” To M. Brongniart then belongs the credit of having first correctly determined the affinities of these two cones, and they must be quoted as Pinites macrocephalus, Brongn., and P. Sussexiensis, Brongn.