Maryland Geological Survey 319 



Since these fructifications are obviously reduced lateral branches, the 

 bracts at least, if not the staminate and ovulate appendages as well, repre- 

 senting leaves, it follows that the ancestral cycadophytes were more or less 

 slender, unarmed, branching forms somewhat similar to the Triassic 

 Anomozamites so admirably restored by Nathorst,^ possibly with terminal 

 instead of axillary fructifications, a not very essential difference, if, in- 

 deed, the fructifications are axillary in Anomozamites. 



Detached and more or less imperfect cycadean fructifications of the 

 same general character as those we have just been considering, and pre- 

 served as impressions, are common fossils in Mesozoic deposits the 

 world over, and are usually referred to the genus Williamsonia. Although 

 their true affinity was long ago suggested by the late Prof. Williamson,^ 



K 



Fig. 9. — Two views of the type of Williamsonia virginiensis, one-half natural 

 size. (After Fontaine.) 



their real nature has been the occasion of a great deal of argument. 

 Williamsonias have been described by Ward' from the Maryland Po- 

 tomac, but the specimens appear to be nothing but poorly preserved and 

 distorted cone fragments of the coniferous genus AMciites, so that a 

 figure of a true Williamsonia from the Virginia Potomac is introduced 

 for comparison with Wieland^s restorations. In habit the Williamsonias 

 were probably borne on much longer peduncles, so that in those forms 

 where they were axillary they projected considerably beyond the armor, 



^Nathorst, loc. cit., p. 13. 



^Williamson, Trans. Geol. See. Lond., 1837, ser. 2, vol. v, pp. 223-242. 

 ' Ward, Mon. U. S. Geol. Surv., No. xlviii, 1906, p. 554, pi. cxv, fig. 11. 

 21 



