606 STRUCTURE AND LIFE HISTORIES 



The axis of the flower terminated in a cone-shaped 

 receptacle, bearing the stalked ovules, and numerous 

 sterile scales (Figs. 424 and 425). The mature seeds often 

 contain the well-preserved fossil embryos, with two 

 cotyledons which quite fill out the nucellus, and show 

 that there was little or no endosperm. These are char- 

 acters never found in the lowest group of modern seed- 



FIG. 428. Flower of magnolia. (Cf. Fig. 429.) 



bearing plants (the Gymnosperms) , but only in the 

 highest group of Angiosperms, the Dicotyledons. In 

 fact, the French paleobotanist, Saporta, called some of the 

 Cycadeoids, Proangios perms. 



621. Relation of Cycadeoidea to Modern Angiosperms. 

 The question of the ancestry of the Angiosperms is the 

 most important problem of paleobotany. Although the 

 Bennettitales possess many of the primitive anatomical 



