122 THE JOURNAL OF INDIAN BOTANY. 



to the apex along one side of the tree. Another curious feature of the 

 tree is that at some places the female sporophylls do not arise on all 

 sides of the growing point as is normally the case but are developed 

 only on one side. This may possibly indicate a tendency to variation 

 in the position of the female cone from terminal to lateral, but nothing 

 definite can be said about this matter without further investigation. 



Since writing the above the writer has seen two more specimens 

 of apparently the same species growing in the Royal Botanic Garden 

 at Calcutta which are also branched in the same way. It is probable 

 that the dichotomy is not real but only due to the growth of some of 

 the buds which are so common on the stem of this plant. It may also 

 be mentioned that Brandis (Indian Trees) says that Cycas Bumphii 

 is often branched. 



Literature cited. 



Brandis. Indian Trees. 



Chamberlain. Living Cycads. 



Coulter and Chamberlain. Gymnosperms, 1917. 



Le Goc. Effect of Foreign Pollination on Cycas Bumphii, Ann. Roy. 



Bot. Gard. Peradeniya, 1917, 6. 



Scott. The Evolution of Plants. 



Description of Figures. 



1. Sporophylls of Cycas revblida with unripe and ripa ovules. 



2. Transition from a sporophyil to a scale. 



3. Cycas circinalis showing peculiar habit. 



