﻿VHI'NG FRUCTIFICATIONS. 



171 



out, but there is, unlike the fruit just described from sections 4ioand 411, scarcely 

 a trace of the earlier presence of staminate organs. It is possible that in this, as 

 in some other instances, such were not developed. (See fig. 90, 1.) 



CYCADEOIDEA PULCHERR1MA (?). (SECTION 409.) 



A trunk fragment of somewhat different appearance from the preceding speci- 

 men, 764, and referred to the doubtful species Cycadeoidea pulcherrima (cf. p. 186), 

 bears a strobilus with an ovulate cone much like that of No. 764 in shape and stage 

 of growth, although much more robust. The surrounding bracts and leaf bases are 

 beautifully preserved and rise well above the ovulate cone, at the base of which are 

 the unmistakable remnants of the lower portions of an hypogynous disk. More- 

 over, inside the bracts surrounding the upper 

 portion of the cone there is a more or less well 

 marked cavity of such shape and appearance as 

 might have been left if the infolded mass of 

 fronds of a medium-sized staminate disk failed 

 of silicification. (See fig. 91.) 



CYCADEOIDEA SUPERBA (TYPE). (Plates 1X-XI.) 



The interesting history of the magnificent 

 type specimen C. superba has been recited in 

 Chapter II, where it is explained that the large 

 central trunk, terminating in a "crow's nest," 

 early gave rise to the four lateral branches, 

 which are large and even approach the parent 

 trunk in size. But the most interesting botan- 

 ical features exhibited by this trunk relate to 

 the particular period of fruit development it 

 had reached when chance led to its preserva- 

 tion in fossil form. In the first place, the 

 central trunk and its immense lateral branches 

 appear to have been the result of rapid and 

 unchecked growth. Secondly, the leaf bases 

 are of large size and their spiral succession is 

 exceedingly regular, never having been inter- 

 rupted by the emergence of any other than the 

 scattering series of young fruits that are actu- 

 ally present and can be located one by one. 

 Nearly all are, though young and deeply embedded in surrounding bracts and 

 ramentum, already prominent — the more especially so because of the fine preser- 

 vation of the bracts and long bract hairs, which in a number of instances form a 

 conical mass projecting above the tops of the surrounding leaf bases. The middle 

 branch bears fifteen fruits, the four lateral branches fifteen, seven, six, and ten 



Fig. 91. — Cycadeoidea pulcherrima. S. 409. 

 T. 719. Natural size. Longitudinal section 

 through bisporangiate strobilus. The arrow 

 points upward, taking the section as radial lon- 

 gitudinal to the trunk, 

 s. Space originally occupied by the staminate disk, 

 the tissues of which were broken down or decarbon- 

 ized before silicification took place ; sd, insertion of 

 the staminate disk, the lower portions of which are 

 partially conserved ; p, peduncle bundle cylinder ; 

 I. the supra-axillary leaf base. Enveloping bracts 

 in solid black. Ovulate zone palisaded in appear- 

 ance, and 1 .5 mm. thick. Summit of cone tufted. 



