﻿Y<>UNG FRUCTIFICATIONS. I 77 



circumference. It is also quite hollow, a considerable portion of the large medulla 

 not being originally preserved ; though conservation is in other respects of surpass- 

 ing perfection and beauty. The apex is complete and 61 large floral axes are borne 

 laterally and about equally distributed over the surface, the trunk, having at the 

 time of fossilization, as will be described presently, just passed the main period of 

 pollen maturation. Fortunately a number of the flowers or fruits yet bear pollen, 

 and several of these, as not yet expanded and preserved entire, have already been 

 described separately in the preceding chapter on bisporaugiate axes. Moreover, 

 the surface features of the other fruits present showed from macroscopic study that 

 not only bisporaugiate axes, but also ovulate and certain young axes, were present. 

 These general features and the examination in thin sections of several of the fruits 

 at once indicated, when these investigations were first begun, not only the practi- 

 cability but the necessity of making the present trunk one of the main bases from 

 which to proceed to the study of the larger series. Hence a number of the fruits 

 were selected according to the variety of external features shown, and cut out in the 

 form of cylindrical cores of various appropriate diameters ranging from 4 to 8 cm. 

 and extending through the entire armor into the medulla. The method of cutting 

 employed is, as described in detail in Chapter III, a new one, especially devised 

 during the course of the present investigation. 



Sixteen axes of fructification in all have been either cut from trunk 214 or 

 carefully studied and numbered 1 to XVI. Numbers 1 and in are the expanded 

 bisporaugiate flowers bearing nearly mature pollen, described in the preceding 

 chapter. The descriptions there given must hence be borne in mind in connection 

 with the present general and more distinctly biologic study. 



It is believed that the study of the fructification of trunk 214 conclusively 

 proves the bisexual character of all or most of its strobili, and that the maturing of 

 these numerous axes of inflorescence was confined mainly to a single reproductive 

 period in the life of the trunk. The fruits studied in thin sections, verifying this 

 conclusion, may be best described in series, beginning with the youngest and pass- 

 ing on up to the most advanced stage of growth exhibited. The fructifications 

 selected for this order and method of presentation are numbered ix, vi, vin, (1), 

 fin), vii, x , xiv, n, and v, and their position on the parent stem, together with 

 axes 1 and in is indicated in figures 14, 89, and 94. Their description follows: 



FRUITS IX. VI, AND VIII. 



The photograph of trunk 214, given on plate VI, No. 8, shows at the summit 

 a series of well-marked conical masses of ramentum 4 or 5 cm. in diameter and 

 projecting to a height of about 4 cm. The surface characters plainly indicated these 

 to be the summits of fruits but little or not at all eroded away, and their position 

 among the youngest of the leaves, next to the apical and non-emergent frond series 

 that would have normally formed the next succeeding foliar crown, at once sug- 

 gested, in the absence of thin sections, that the strobili inclosed must more likely 

 be young than any others. Such has proven to be the fact. As photographed on 

 plate xxxix, No. 1, and plate xu, No. 1, the median longitudinal sections through 



