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1914] MANEVAL—MAGNOLIACEAE 23 
-dales, Cordaitales, Ginkgoales, Coniferales), and a bisporangiate 
strobilus with the anthostrobilus arrangement of sporophylls 
(Bennettitales, Gnetales, and leading to angiosperms).’’ This 
view apparently involves the idea that the Bennettitales, Gnetales, 
and angiosperms belong to one stock, but the relationship between | 
the three groups at their origin may have been anything but close. 
Even though angiosperms are prevailingly amphisporangiate today 
this may not have been the condition among their remote ancestors; 
in fact it seems probable that those ancestors possessed monospo- 
-rangiate flowers. 
Though primitive angiosperms possessed monosporangiate, 
naked, anemophilous flowers, it is evident that they did not become 
the dominant group of plants until they developed amphispo- 
rangiate flowers with a perianth, and became entomophilous. 
This view is evidently opposed to the one that the present day 
angiosperms have been derived from the Bennettitean stock. 
The main reason for this belief is that except for resemblance in 
the fructifications, which may be quite superficial, the two groups 
are entirely different in structure. Indeed, had the Bennettitean 
proanthostrobilus never been discovered, probably no one would 
have ever suspected close relationship between such widely differ- 
ent groups. Leaving out of consideration the nature of the 
inflorescence, the following may be noted with reference to the 
Bennettitales: their seeds are of the gymnospermous type; the 
microsporophylls, microsporangia, and ramentum are fernlike in 
character; the external appearance and anatomy of the stem and 
leaf indicate relationship with cycads. -All these characters suggest 
relationship with Cycadofilicales, while their strobili alone indicate 
a possible connection with angiosperms. It seems on the whole 
much simpler and safer to conclude that the Bennettitean pro- 
anthostrobilus and the angiospermous anthostrobilus are nothing 
more nor less than the results of homoplastic development, and 
that if they indicate relationship at all, it must be of the remotest 
kind, dating from a time prior to the origin of the Bennettitales 
as a separate stock, a time when neither true Bennettitales nor 
angiosperms had ever existed. 
If then angiosperms were peinitively anemophilous with naked 
