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I.—On some Undescribed Coniferous Fruits from the Secondary Rocks of Britain1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Wm. Carruthers
Affiliation:
Botanical Department, British Museum

Extract

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.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1869

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Footnotes

1

This paper is supplementary to two papers published in Vol. III. of the Geol. Mag.; the one “On Araucarian Cones from the Secondary Rocks of Britain,” at page 249; and the other “On some Fossil Coniferous Fruits,” at page 534.

References

page 2 note 1 De Candolle's Prodromus. Vol. xvi., Sec. 2, p. 407. Paris, 1868.Google Scholar

page 2 note 2 The original and as yet only known specimen of this species is in the Museum at Oxford.

page 3 note 1 Amtlicher Bericht über du xxv. Versammlung der Gesellshaft Deutsher Naturforscher und Aerzte in Aachen, Sept., 1847, pp. 347–352.