CYCADOFILICALES 



II 



construction of a Carboniferous swamp forest (fig. 4). This splendid 

 reconstruction, made possible by abundant material, mostly from 

 the vicinity of Chicago, has been done at the Field Museum of Nat- 

 ural History in Chicago. Paleobotanists, paleozoologists, geologists, 

 sculptors, and painters, working for three years, produced this re- 

 markable restoration, of which about 90 per cent has been made from 

 actual specimens. The illustration probably looks very much as it 

 would if a photograph could have been taken 250 millions of years 

 ago. The big trees are Lepidodendron and Sigillaria, but the fernlike 



Fig. 5. — Carboniferous swamp-forest. Reconstruction in Field Museum, at Chicago, 

 showing the entire reconstruction. 



plants, except the true fern, Psaronius, belong to the Cycadofilicales. 

 The view in fig. 5, taken from a different angle, shows the entire re- 

 construction. The key (fig. 6) will be helpful, even to the botanists 

 who are more or less familiar with the flora of the period. 



LIFE-HISTORIES 



Life-history of Lyginopteris. — The life-history of the best 

 known of all Carboniferous plants will help not only in understand- 

 ing the Cycadofilicales themselves, but will be useful when we try to 

 speculate about the ancestry and progeny of the group. 



The stem.- — ^The stem was long and slender, with large leaves, too 

 scattered to form such a crown as that of the familiar tree ferns, and 

 with rather large roots, some of which were adventitious. The resto- 

 ration shown in the frontispiece of the second volume of Scott's 

 Fossil Botany, ^^^ and that shown in the Field Museum swamp forest, 



