﻿OVULATE CONES. I 27 



Cycas revoluta of the same size, or perhaps fifteen years, since the size of the fronds 

 is about the same as in such a trunk. Perhaps this plant was relatively even 

 younger when fossilized rather than older. 



Trunk 131. 



In the trunk just described scarcely a single fruiting axis is definitely and 

 positively young; but in cycad 131, which represents approximately the middle 

 two-thirds of a trunk, as shown in plate xxn, and which has been referred by Pro- 

 fessor Ward to the same species as the preceding trunk, a condition is exhibited 

 which furnishes some very definite data, varying in part from trunk 393. This trunk 

 is a taller one than 393, and the armor has been eroded away over a considerable 

 portion of one side, while a further portion of the surface has suffered crushing 

 when in a more or less plastic condition. Nevertheless, over nearly half of the 

 cylindrical surface the characters of the leaf bases and axillary fruits are exceedingly 

 clear; and on this portion of the surface, a typical area of which is clearly to be seen 

 in plate xxn, a primary series of forty-two large and a secondary interpolated series 

 of about sixteen quite small and young fruits may be counted. Of the primary 

 series of fruits several are preserved entire, about a half dozen are partially preserved, 

 and over thirty are marked by peduncles only, and were either not preserved or else 

 were dehiscent — it being rather difficult to say which in some instances. The seeds 

 of the cones are of approximately the mature size seen in Bennettites Gibsonianus 

 and B. Morierei, and, as in the types of these species, young embryos are present. 

 Hence it is not probable that the peduncles underwent further elongation. At any 

 rate, throughout the entire series they are of very even length and bear the fruits 

 with their tips just about protruding from the armor, where this is preserved to its 

 approximately normal length ; but in all these forty-two fruits of the primary series 

 there is a certain similarity which marks them as being of approximately the same 

 age and seasonal growth. 



In the case of the secondary series of fifteen small fruits some further sections 

 may yet be made with great profit, especially from those borne nearer the summit, 

 such being slightly in the majority ; but the sections already made show that these 

 fruits are ovulate and quite young and small, the largest being but a centimeter long 

 by a half centimeter in diameter, with a seed zone but a few millimeters in thick- 

 ness. No evidence of the presence of young staminate organs or the earlier shed- 

 ding of an hypogynous disk has as yet been observed in any of these fruits, the 

 young and small bracts and ramentum closing in densely over the summit of each. 



Trunks 77 and 76+375. 

 On the basis of the features noted on the several trunks just mentioned it can 

 only be said that varying degrees of bisexuality, or of moncecism or dioecism may 

 be here conjectured, and that it is not wholly clear whether the immature fruits rep- 

 resent aborted series, or as is quite possible, the young stages of the ovulate fruits of a 

 second and far less active season of fructification. In either case there is suggested 

 waning power to produce fruits after the first season of active fructification. In com- 

 plete accord with such an interpretation is the condition to be seen in cycad 77, the 



