Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1963, Blaðsíða 80

86
Fossil Metasequoia Frotn Mikines, Faroe Islands
collection contains also impressions of twigs, with partly
coalified remains of these (f. eks. no. 9), together with a
few indistinct and fragmentary impressions of dicotyledonous
leaves (No. 9, 13, E and F). It is believed that this colU
ection is representative for the bed in question. The authors
have visited the locality in June 1963, and the invest*
igation of this fossil bearing bed did confirm this opinion.
Only the remains of Metasequoia were observed on this
occasion.
Metasequoia occidentalis (Newb.) Chaney (Pl. 1 & 2).
The collection in question contains only vegetative parts
of the following kinds: long shoots and short shoots. The
isolated short shoots are predominant. But on several spe«
cimens short shoots are attached in pairs to the long shoots,
i. e. they are found in opposite position. So one specimen
(no. 8) (pl. 1, fig. 1) demonstrates a long shoot with 4
nodes. At one of these nodes two short shoots are attached
to the node and, again, they are in the opposite position.
At another node of the same specimen only a small frag*
ment of a short shoot axis is found attached to the long
shoot, with an entirely preserved short shoot on the oppo*
site side. At each of the other two nodes one attached
short shoot, and presumably an opposite one — the axis
of which points towards the node without its very basal
part being preserved — can be seen. One of these pairs
is located at the lowermost preserved part of the long
shoot, and the node itself is just on the edge of the shale
specimen. One of these two short shoots has its axis along
the very edge of the shale specimen.
On the same shale specimen are two other long shoots,
each of them with several attached short shoots. Because
the counterprint of this shale specimen is not present in
the collection, it is difficult to study both of the paired
short shoots at all the nodes. This is particularly the case