THE ORIGIN OF ANGIOSPERMS. 63 
as well as in the possession of a primitive perianth. It differed from 
the Bennettitean strobilus in that the megasporangia were seated on the 
margins of the carpels, the homologues of the interseminal scales, which were 
free from one another and not united at the apex. Also the microsporophylls 
were spirally arranged, and perhaps more reduced than those of that group. 
Such a strobilus would be all but Angiospermie, were it not that the task of pollen 
collection was still performed by the ovule, and that it lacked the precise form 
Fig. 4. 
at 
kis 
Nie 
.. 
. 
". 
eas 
< . ` 
Ы . 
... 
. 
EET 
Sens 
è . 
N 
L S 
The pro-anthostrobilus of the hypothetical Hemiangiospermeæ. Diagrammatic 
representation of a longitudinal section through the cone, showing perianth, 
microsporophylls and megasporophylls. 
of mierosporophyll which is termed a stamen. The general form of mega- 
sporophyll would correspond more closely with that of the living genus Cycas, 
than with the corresponding structures presented by the known Bennettitez. 
That this assumption is a natural one may be inferred from the known 
antiquity, and frequent occurrence of such a type of megasporophyll in the 
ancient rocks *. 
* See Solms-Laubach (1891) p. 86. 
