VOLUME I. XI NUMBER 5 



THE .> 



Botanical Gazette 



MAY 1916 

 STANGERIA PARADOXA 



CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE HULL BOTANICAL LABORATORY 214 



Charles J. Chamberlain 



(WITH PLATES XXIV-XXVI AND ONE FIGURE) 



Stangeria is the most fernlike of all the cycads; in fact it was 

 described originally as a species of Lomaria, one of the Polypodia- 

 ceae, and the mistake was not corrected until the cones were dis- 

 covered. The genus may be monotypic, with Stangeria paradoxa 

 as its single polymorphic species. That its general habit, as it 

 appears in the field, is extremely variable is beyond question; and 

 that under cultivation in conservatories and botanical gardens it 

 becomes quite different from the wild form is also apparent. 



A plant called Stangeria eriopus in the New York Botanical 

 Garden has produced fine crowns of leaves, surpassing anything 

 one is likely to find in the field, and it has had at least one ovulate 

 cone (10). A specimen of 5. paradoxa in the Botanic Garden at 

 Sydney, Australia, had in ign a line display of leaves and 8 stami- 

 nate cones; while another plant in the same garden had 5 ovulate 

 cones and an equally fine display of leaves. In the Sydney plants 

 the leaves were not in a single crown, but on subterranean branches 

 with only a few leaves on a branch. In both the Australian and 

 the African gardens Stangeria produces leaves and cones more 

 freely than in the field, and both cones and leaves are larger than 

 in field specimens. The cultivated specimens are more beautiful 

 and luxuriant, and differ so much from plants in the field, that some 

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