﻿328 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 47 



face of the crushed and immature fruits being precisely in agreement 

 with that of the seeds in figures 4 and 9. 



At the apex of the pedicel illustrated in figure 13, a portion of 

 which is enlarged at a, we see some of the small scars which should 

 perhaps be regarded as vestiges of abortive ovules, though it is pos- 

 sible that they may have rather to do with the development of spore- 

 bearing organs. In other examples, like that drawn in figure 12, 

 they are found to be associated or apparently originally connected 

 with delicate, very narrow, dichotomous, partially coiled, lineate- 

 nerved, laminate appendages, with slightly thickened apices. The 

 circumstances of their occurrence, and the form of these very delicate 

 and apparently transitory appendages, strongly suggest their func- 

 tion as the polleniferous organs of the plant. Additional evidence 

 is, however, necessary before drawing conclusions in this very im- 

 portant matter. The scars left at the apices of the petioles after the 

 fall of the mature seeds, as imperfectly indicated for comparison in 

 figure 14, are at once distinguishable from those in the specimens 

 shown in figure 13. Ordinarily, however, the abandoned pedicels 

 are seen only in profile and show only the edges from along which 

 their seeds were detached. 



The problem of the spore-bearing organs of Ancimitcs fertilis re- 

 mains to be determined by the future discovery of more conclusive 

 material. I am strongly disposed to believe, however, that they will 

 be found either to be connected with the appendages of the type just 

 described or, less probably, represented by an associated, delicate, 

 small type of Calymmatotheca that may possibly have been de- 

 veloped at the distal borders of the more dilated and distinctly 

 venous lamina; seen at the apices of some of the pedicels, like that 

 shown in plate xlviii, figure 5. The arguments for Calymmatotheca 

 are stronger in the case of the Pocahontas plant, already referred 

 to, which will be fully described in the writer's monograph of the 

 Pottsville floras. At no locality have sporangia of the genus last 

 mentioned been found distinctly in union with any species of Anci- 

 mitcs. 



Summary 



In the foregoing pages it has been shown that the fruits of 

 . Intimites (Adiantites of authors) are borne singly or rarely plurally 

 at the apices of lax, flexuose, ramose, and slightly dilated terminal 

 extensions of the peripheral pinnae, whose pinnules become greatly 

 reduced in the proximate sterile portions. Each seed may be re- 

 garded as corresponding to a lobe or pinnule, whose basal stalklet is 



