﻿136 



REPRODUCTIVE STRUCTURES. 



4.5 cm., its diameter 2 em. at the broadest point below. The depth of the seed stem 

 and interseminal scale zone is, where thickest, about 8 mm. The base of the fruit 

 is fluted by bract appression, and there is the same suggestion of an earlier-borne 

 basal disk, as observed in the ovulate cones described above. In agreement with the 

 large size of the heavily armored parent trunk the peduncle is longer, so that the 

 fruit is borne in the same relative position in the armor as in various smaller trunks- 

 As shown in longitudinal section (fig. 67), the receptacle is of elongated conical 

 shape, with marked lateral constriction, and is quite as long as the fruit itself. The 

 terminus is slightly eroded away, but may have borne a few abortive pedicels. Most 

 of the fertile pedicels are borne in the middle and upper region of the fruit, where 

 there is more freedom from the compression of the surrounding armor, and both 

 scales and pedicels stand in a vertical position to the receptacle throughout its entire 



Fig. 69. — Restoration of ovulate strobilus like that shown in the preceding figure. Much 

 reduced. The bracts, as shown partly removed, may perchance be represented much too 

 long. In case an hypogynous staminate disk was earlier present the bracts may have been 

 nearly, but not fully, as long as the nearly full-grown microsporophylls, or 8 to 10 cm in 

 length. 



length. Because of this vertical insertion of the seed pedicels they are, in the 

 exactly transverse sections from the upper middle parts of the cone, cut lengthwise 

 from base to apex, just as in longitudinal sections. (This feature plainly appears 

 in section 399, figure 67a). The seeds are fairly well advanced in growth. The 

 nucellar contents are preserved in outline, but not differentiated, and the continuation 

 of the nucellus into the micropylar tube is often neatly shown. Where the fruit is 

 covered by the bract hairs the projecting stigma-like tips of the micropylar tubes 

 are very distinct. It is believed that the present fruit is merely a more advanced 

 stage in the growth of the central ovulate cone of a bisporangiate strobilus like 

 those borne by the superb specimen of C. dacotensis (trunk 214), illustrated by 

 various text-figures and further described in the next and succeeding chapters on 

 bisporangiate strobili and young fructifications. 



