JReviews — The Royal Agricultural Society's Journal. 577 



pound fruit of tlie fossil. In the recent members of the order, the 

 fruit, whether borne on slightly modified leaves, as in Cycas, or on 

 the peltate or imbricated scales of a cone, as in the other genera, is 

 always produced on foliar organs. In the fossil, on the other hand, 

 it is borne at the end of its axis. In this respect, however, it agrees 

 with Taxus, except that it possesses innumerable seeds ; it must be 

 considered to hold the same relation to the other Cycadem that Taxus, 

 with its succulent, cup-shaped pericarp, does to the cone-bearing 

 CoQiiferas;" 



The last-mentioned genus Mantellia, named by Brongniart, and 

 with which the genus Cycadeoidea, of Buckland, is synonymous, 

 forms the subject of an important memoir by Dr. Buckland, which 

 owes much of its value to the observations of the late Eobert Brown, 

 which it contains. Mr. Carruthers points out that the trunks of 

 Mantellia " differ from Bennettites in their form, as well as in the 

 xaore distinctly rhomboidal petioles and the elongated secondary 

 axi». They agree in the nature of the tissues and the method in 

 which they are built up in the stem. The petioles are clothed with 

 a dense ramentum, and they have numerous axillary branches which 

 bore small, simple linear-lanceolate leaves. The branches, when 

 full-grown, are broken off at the point where they leave the bases 

 of the petioles. Sometimes they are undeveloped, 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 ramentum. 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." (p. 701.) 



It is earnestly tobe hoped that the author of the present valuable 

 Monograph will not leave the stems he has so ably described, 

 destitute of foliage, but that, having given us the very pith of the 

 subject, he will go on to the branches, buds, leaves, and fruits. May 

 we add the hope that Mr. W. G. Smith, who has so ably and 

 truthfully delineated the structure of Oycadean stems, in the ten 

 beautiful quarto plates which illustrate this Monograph, from the 

 remarkable series of specimens in the British Museum, may be speci- 

 ally retainsed to- draw the foliage. — J.M. 



n. JOTTRNAL OV THE KOYAL AGRICULTURAL SoCIETY OF ENGLAND. 



Second Series^. Vol. vi. Part 2, No. xii. 1870. 



THE bearing of Geology upon Agriculture is so prominently shown 

 in the Journals of the Royal Agricultural Society that we look 

 forward with great interest to the publication .of the successive 

 numbers. The one before us contains a very pretty geological map 

 of the country around Oxford, including a large area, being bounded 

 by the towns of Eeading, Wantage, Lechlade, Stow-on-the-Wold, - 

 Banbury, Brackley, Buckingham, Aylesbury, High Wycombe, and 

 Great Marlow. This map, which illustrates a Report, by Mr. H. W. 



