A NEW CYC AD. 1 



By THOS. H. McBRIDE. 



In 1868, Mr. W. Carruthers described under the treneric 

 name Bennettites certain fossil cycadaceous plants from the 

 Lower Green Sand of the Isle of Wight. 2 The most striking- 

 and apparent feature of the genus Bennettites would seem to 

 be its elliptical outline and the circumstance that the flower 

 buds arise irregularly from the inner bark and from amoncr or 

 between the leaf bases. Certain fossils obtained by the writer, 

 near Minnekahta in South Dakota seem not only to belong to 

 this genus but to illustrate its character unusually well. The 

 specimens described, were found (in company with fortv or 

 fifty more) weathered out on a hill-top. The rocks below 

 and above are sand, and if I may judge by such knowledge 

 as I have at present, the fossils under discussion are from the 

 Jura-Trias or lower Cretaceous. 



BeNxNEttites dacotensis Macbride. n. s. Plate XIL 



Plant for the most part silicified, plainly elliptical in section, 

 the measurements for the specimen before me are: girth three 

 feet six inches, height thirteen inches, longer diameter fourteen 

 inches, shorter eleven and one-half. The pith large, simply 

 cellular, punctate where weathered, destitute of fibro-vascular 

 bundles, surrounded by a woody cylinder which is from an 

 inch to one inch and a quarter in thickness. The wood is 

 divided at regular intervals by numerous medullary rays 



* Reprinted in part from the American Geologist for October, 1893. 

 » See Trans. Linnsan Society, Vol. 26, p. 675, seq. London, 1S6S. 



