THE EVIDENCE 87 



bears a large number of seeds, each seated on 

 a long slender stalk; the spaces between the seed- 

 stalks are packed with sterile scales, which are 

 enlarged at their ends and fit closely together, 

 forming a kind of ovary -wall, or pericarp. This, 

 however, is not completely closed, for wherever 

 there is a seed a little gap in the wall is left, into 

 which the open end or micropyle of the seed fits, 

 and so reaches the surface. The seeds are beauti- 

 fully preserved; their structure is simple com- 

 pared with that of the seeds of living Cycads, 

 for in the fossils they were well protected by the 

 fruit in which they were embedded. 



The most interesting fact about the seeds is 

 that they contain well-preserved embryos. It is 

 only in this group of plants that fossil embryos 

 have been found; it is an extraordinary piece of 

 good fortune that such delicate bodies should 

 have been preserved at all. 



The embryo is dicotyledonous (fig. 10, B); 

 the two fleshy cotyledons are turned towards 

 the base of the seed and the young root towards 

 the micropyle, just as in ordinary seeds at the 

 present time. The embryo practically fills up 

 the whole interior of the seed; there was little 

 or no endosperm when the seed was ripe. Thus 

 the seeds were "exalbuminous," a state of things 

 quite unknown among living Gymnosperms, 

 and only found in a part of the Angiosperms. We 



