206 REPORTS O? INVESTIGATIONS AND PROJECTS. 



PALEONTOLOGY. 



Wieland, G. R., Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. Grant No. 

 434. Taxonomic {and structural) study of American fossil cycads. 

 (For previous reports see Year Book No. 2, p. xxxvii ; Year Book No. 3, 

 p. 123, and Year Book No. 4, p. 241.) $2,000. 



Dr. Wieland reports that the cycad investigations of the present year have 

 been mainly preliminary to the taxonomic and stratigraphic study of the fossil 

 forms from American horizons, and most of the time has been occupied in the 

 quite indispensable study of the European collections of fossil plants in which 

 the cycads are best represented. Amongst the more important collections 

 studied may be mentioned those of Bologna, Stockholm, London and Cam- 

 bridge, and Paris. A visit to St. Petersburg and Moscow yielded mainly 

 negative results, chiefly because the active study of fossil plants is only now 

 being begun in Russia. 



The examination of the famous cycadeoidean trunk of the Zwinger 

 Museum at Dresden {Cycadeoidea reichenbachiana, found in 1753, but never 

 adequately described) resulted in the important discovery that this great 

 trunk bears amongst other fruits one large lateral flower-bud with a stam- 

 inate disk of 16 microsporophylls silicified in marvelous perfection, and of 

 the same general form as the Black Hills cycad disks. Such have not hith- 

 erto been found in any European trunks. 



The view advanced in Dr. Wieland's monograph on "American Fossil 

 Cycads" ( Publication No. 34) , that the floral structures of Cycadeoidea show 

 that the evolution of angiospermous flowers has been a reduction process 

 from a megaphyllous ancestry (not very remote from the Cycadeoideae), has 

 been accepted by many botanists and paleobotanists. 



That field, perhaps the most interesting in all the realm of fossil plants, 

 wherein must sooner or later be discovered the direct ancestors of the angio- 

 sperms, is therefore at last indicated. Also, in looking forward beyond the 

 present structural and taxonomic studies towards the future development of 

 our subject, it is seen to be especially desirable to reexamine and extend our 

 knowledge of the later Paleozoic and early Mesozoic terranes yielding or 

 likely to yield fossil plants. So, too, the little-known regions of the Far 

 North urgently appeal to us for study, the plant localities of the polar lands 

 already known having yielded such wonderfully suggestive evidence as to 

 ancient origins and distribution. 



With these thoughts in mind, a paleontologic reconnaissance in Spitz- 

 bergen was attempted last July ; but this was rendered unsuccessful of direct 

 result by the abnormal ice floes from Franz Josef's Land, which prevented 

 landing on the west Spitzbergen coast. It is wished to explore Ellesmere 

 Land at another time; though these are only a few of the localities which 

 suggest themselves for future field work. 



