702 MR. W. CARRUTHERS ON FOSSIL CYCADEAN STEMS 



un<l .« -loped, and still exist as unexpanded leaf-buds, terminating the shortened branch. 

 These buds are composed of leaves, protected by a very dense and very abundant ramen- 

 tum. The branches precisely agree with those in Bennettites, and have been, I have no 

 doubt, like them, the supports of the organs of reproduction ; only the fruits, having been 

 borne at the ends of elongated and consequently unprotected branches, have been broken 

 off. 



S toe stems have no lateral buds. These may have been male plants ; and their sta- 

 minal flowers were perhaps cones, produced at the termination of the main axis. 



While the bulbils observed in some living Cycadece enable us to understand the occur- 

 nnce of axillary appendages in the fossils, it must be remembered that the branches of 

 I'xnnettitecd are very difFerent from them. These branches had a well-developed and 

 regularly arranged woody system, and were permanent organs of the plant, being thus as 



lifferent structurally as they were functionally from the deciduous bulbils of existin 



Cyoads. 



The trunks of Mantellia have been described as spheroidal. They were really cylin 

 dried, and may have attained a considerable height. Their flattened condition arise! 



b 



3 



from the pressure of the superincumbent mass of rock on the earth or "dirt" bed in 

 which they are preserved. 



Mantellia mdtformis, Brongn. Prodr. pp. 96 and 199 (1828). (Tab. LXIII. fig. 1.) 



1-28. Cycadeoidea megalophylla, Buckland, Proc. Geol. Soc. vol. i. p. 80; (1829) Trans. Geol. Soc. 



cor 9 TrrJ :\ ,, 007 J. 4W in 



Mi 



ser. 2. vol. ii. p. 397, pis. 47, 48. 



1886. ( ycadfai megakpkylhu, Buckl. Geol. & Mineral 



1888. Zamites meyalnphyllus, Presl, Sternberg's Flora d 

 1842. Encephalartos Buckl andii, Miquel, Monogr. Cyca 

 IS 49. Echinostipes nidiformis, Pomel, Amtlicher Beriol 



% / > A, 



Trunk cylindrical, permanent bases of the petioles large, lozenge-shaped, two to three 



inches broad, by one and a half deep, meshes in the woody cylinder small and 



scattered 



11m u the largest species of the genus. It is generally found very much compressed 

 and passed out, showing a greater diameter and much less height than belonged to it. 

 i»- apex of the stem being more perishable and longer exposed to the action of those 

 changes wlueh covered the Coniferous and Cycadean forest with a great thickness of 

 ». , stone, bas d,snpp,;„vd, leaving a hollow in the flattened stem; and this has suggested 

 totte quarry-meu the notion, universally entertained by them, that they are crows* 



J^^itTi£r?£ this spe t as in the others - Amons the , 



th om examined, I bave seen only a small number with a few of 



them 



From the " 



[British, Jermyn-St., Geological- Soc.. and other Museums.] 



* l BBIED] , sp. nor. (Tab. LXHi. fig. 4 et 5.) 



Trunk cylindrical 



permanent bases of the petioles large, lozenge-shaped, an inch and 



