BTTCKLANDIA.. 121 



made of some large stumps of cycads having been found near 

 Baltimore, Maryland, and their age is spoken of by Tyson as 

 probably Upper Jurassic. Fontaine's Potomac Flora 1 contains 

 a few photographs of these Maryland stems, and a splendid 

 specimen has lately been received by the Botanical Department 

 of the British Museum. The few facts we so far possess as to 

 these American stems lead us to expect a descriptive monograph 

 of exceptional interest. 2 



The material so far collected from Upper Jurassic and Lower 

 Cretaceous strata has already yielded valuable information with 

 regard to the anatomy of the vegetative, and in some instances 

 of the reproductive, structures of Mesozoic cycadean plants. To 

 further extend our knowledge of these various fossil species, a more 

 intimate acquaintance with the several types of recent cycads 

 is much to be desired; and, as Solms-Laubach 3 points out, we 

 possess no detailed and modern account of the large tuberous 

 stems long ago described by Buckland from the dirt-beds of 

 Portland. 



Genus BUCKLANDIA, Presl. 

 [Sternberg, Flor. Vorwelt, fasc. iv. p. xxxiii. 1825.] 



This genus was instituted by Presl for a plant discovered by 

 Mantell in the Wealden of Tilgate ; the same fossil had been 

 previously referred by Stokes and Webb to Clathraria* a term 

 proposed by Brongniart 5 in 1822 for certain forms of sigillarian 

 stems. Mantell 6 was the first to give a description of these Tilgate 

 plants, but he proposed no name for them, merely pointing out 

 a probable affinity with the Euphorliacea, or possibly with the 

 arborescent ferns. Carruthers pays a tribute to the "remarkable 

 discrimination" 7 with which Presl recognized the cycadean nature 



1 Fontaine (A. 2), pis. clxxiv.-clxxx. 



2 MacBride. 



3 Fossil Botany, p. 99. 



4 Stokes and Webb (A.), Trans. Geol. Soc. [2] vol. i. p. 421. 

 * (3), p. 209. 



6 Mantell (A. 3), Illust. Geol. Sussex, p. 42. 



7 Loc. at. p. 682. 



