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INTRODUCTORY. 



RESUME. 

 The Cycadeoideie have mostly bulbous to nearly spherical or little elongated 

 trunks less than one meter high and are, like Zaw/'a, much given to branching. 

 Various unbranched species were present, however, and the Jurassic Cycadella and 

 the existing Bowenia agree in being small and rarely branched. The low, freely 

 branching Cycadeoidese are often larger than low-growing existing forms of like 

 branching habit, but, on the other hand, the columnar types, like Cycadeoidca 

 gigantea Seward and C. excelsa and C. Jenneyana Ward, have not yet been found 



«®»f * 



Fig. 13. — Cycas revoluta. The sago palm. Part of a plantation in Ceylon. From Warming. 



either branched or so tall as the taller species of Cycas. They did, however, reach 

 approximately the height of the larger of the more specialized Zamiese, with which 

 they should rather be compared, since C. Jenneyana, the tallest known fossil cycad, 

 certainly attained a height of 1.30 and probably 2 or 3 meters. In their general 

 limits of stature both the existing and fossil cycads are comparable to tree ferns. 

 That the Cycadeoidese were far more diversified in general trunk form than the 

 surviving cycads is shown by the Triassic Anomozamites, as approached only by 

 artificially-grown cycads ; though in general appearance and habit of trunk-growth 

 both groups present a most profound and complete parallelism. 



