which favour the conclusion, that the originals belonged to an extinct tribe of gymnosperms; but in other specimens, bundles of vascular tissue, resembling those of palms, are apparent. Large water-worn stems of _Endogenites_ are occasionally washed out of the Wealden cliffs at Hastings, and in Sandown and Brook Bays, in the Isle of Wight. [Sidenote: FOSSIL CONIFERÆ.] Fossil coniferæ. The other great natural order of Gymnospermous phanerogamiæ,[135] the _Coniferæ_, or cone-bearing--so named from the form of their fruit, of which the fir-cones and larch-juli are familiar examples,--comprise the extensive tribes of Firs and Pines, and the Cypresses, Yews, Junipers, Cedars, &c., among which are the loftiest trees on the face of the globe. [135] Signifying, flowering plants with naked seeds. The Conifers are all arborescent, having numerous branches, which are in general disposed with much regularity. The leaves are commonly acicular or needle-shaped, narrow, and linear: in two or three genera, however, (_Dammara_, _Podocarpus_,) the foliage departs remarkably from the ordinary type, the leaves being broad and flat. The structure of the stem, though in its general characters essentially exogenous (see _Plate IV. fig. 4_),--that is, having a central pith, medullary rays, zones of vascular tissue, and concentric circles of growth,--differs in the almost entire absence of spiral vessels, and in the peculiar modification of the radiating bands of woody fibre, which are made up of uniform longitudinal vessels, and run parallel with the medullary rays. The lateral walls of these vessels have longitudinal rows of areolæ, which are generally circular or elliptical, but when in contact are angular and polygonal: each areola has a small pore or punctation in the centre. These discs, glands, or ducts, as they are called, are variously arranged in different genera; they are generally confined to the contiguous and corresponding lateral surfaces of the fibres; and occur rarely, if ever, on the inner and outer aspects of the vessels. In the recent genus Pinus the rows of ducts are single in some species; in others both single and double series occur, but never more than two, and in the latter case the ducts are always parallel to each other (see pl. v. 3_b_. _Wond._ pp. 696, 725). But in the _Araucariæ_, or Norfolk Island Pines, the vessels have double, triple, and sometimes quadruple, rows of discs, of smaller size than in the common pines; and in the double series, these bodies are always arranged alternately (_Wond._ p. 696. _Bd._ 56 _a_.); Mr. Nicol states that there are about 50 discs in the length of 1/20 inch, the diameter of each not exceeding 1/1000 inch.