Vol. XI, pp. 1-17 March 13, 1897 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THK. 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



DESCRIPTIONS OF THE' SPECIES OF CYCADEOIDEA, 

 OPv FOSSIL CYCADEAN TPvUNKS, THUS FAR DIS- 

 COVERED IN THE IRON ORE BELT, POTOMAC FOR- 



MATION, OF MARYLAND/^ 



BY LESTER F. WARD. 



On November 4. 1893, I read a paper before this Society on 

 ' Cycadean Trunks in the American Cretaceous,' which under 

 the fuller title, ' Fossil Cycadean Trunks of North America, with 

 a Revision of the Genus Cycadeoidea Buckland,' was published 

 in the ninth volume of its Proceedings.f At that date only one 

 species of cycadean trunks had been published from the Iron 

 Ore beds of Maryland. This was founded on four specimens 

 that had long lain in the Museum of the Maryland Academy of 

 Sciences at Baltimore. The}' had been collected by Philip Tyson 

 before the civil war, and he had mentioned them in his report 

 as State Agricultural Chemist in 1860, recognizing their cycadean 

 character and applying to them the term " Cycas," apparently 

 without intending thereby to refer them to the living genus by 

 that name, but merely to denote their resemblance to the trunks 

 of plants familiar to all under that name. Much interest, I learn, 

 was excited at the time by the discovery of these specimens, and 

 the Mar^yland Academy of Sciences is said to have discussed 

 their nature at a number of its meetings. Indeed, I have been 



* Read before the Society February 27, 1807. Pnhli^hed by peniiission 

 of the Director of the U. S. National iluseum. 

 t Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. IX, Washington, 1894, pp. 75-88. 



1 — Hior,. Soc. Wash., Vol. XI, 1897 (1) 



