﻿OVULATE COXES. 



IS 



CYCADEOIDEA MARSHIANA. (Figs. 67 and 67a.) 

 (Plate xxxni, sections 399 to 406 and 40S, all from same fruit.) 

 The remarkably handsome group of robust branching cycadeoidean trunks 

 from the southern Black Hills, to which the specific names Cycadeoidea Marshiana, 

 minnekahtensis, dacotensis have been given, is characterized by large ovulate strobili 

 with short seed pedicels and elongate conical to pear-shaped receptacles, the reverse 

 of the condition seen in C. Gibsonianus, Moricrci, Paynci, etc. This fact is clearly 

 seen in the various thin sections from a typical fruit borne by cycadean trunk 229, 



Fig. 68. — Cycadeoidea supetba. T. 717. Portion of trunk bearing an ovulate strobilus 

 surrounded by bracts and leaf bases. The strobilus has greatly increased in size after 

 the shedding of the staminate disk (if such was earlier present) ; and were it not lor the 

 breaking or eroding away of all the apical seed stems and interseminal scales, would 

 extend several centimeters beyond the ends of the leaf bases. The exposed portion of 

 the receptacle is ol globular to pear shape except for the low conical apex. Natural 

 size. (Cf. the restoration given in figure 69.) 



a handsome though but partially recovered branch at first referred to C. minnekah- 

 tensis (?). The trunk and serial thin sections from a large ovulate fruit borne by it are 

 illustrated in plate xxxni by photographs, the features of the strobilus being further 

 shown in the supplementary pen drawings, pages 133 and 134. Aside from size, 

 relative proportion of parts and a rather greater number of surrounding bracts, no 

 essential differences from preceding strobili are present. The shape of the fruit is 

 quite exactly that of a robust pear. The depth of the surrounding armor is 8 cm. 

 and the length of the peduncle 6 cm. The length of the partly projecting fruit is 

 5 cm., its greatest diameter about 3.5 cm. The length of the central receptacle is 



