Maryland Geological Survey 367 



When Professor Fontaine came to work up the Potomac flora he 

 founded six new species of Cycadeospermum upon rather obscure remiiins 

 of fruits or seeds from various localities in Virginia, and additional 

 remains of a similar character have since been described by the same 

 author from the Shasta formation of California, the Kootanie forma- 

 tion of Montana, the Triassic of Pennsylvania, and the Jurassic of 

 Oregon. In the flora of the Dakota Group, Professor Lesquereux 

 referred two additional species of rather doubtful value to this genus 

 which has come to be looked upon as a convenient form-genus for the 

 reception of fruits or seeds which suggest a cycadean afiinity, but about 

 which no certainty can exist, since they have thus far failed to show 

 internal structure and are all found detached, although at times asso- 

 ciated in the same deposits with cycad-like fronds, as is the case with 

 the Potomac species which follow. 



Cycadeospermum marylandicum sp. nov. 

 Plate LXXVII, Fig. 8 



Description. — Fruits of medium size, 14 mm. to 15 mm. in length, 8 

 mm. to 9 mm. in width, and from 5 mm. to 6 mm. in thickness, ovate in 

 outline, chalazal end broadly rounded, almost truncate, sides but slightly 

 curved, approaching each other toward the micropylar end, which is not 

 preserved in its entirety. Surface hard and shiny with faint longi- 

 tudinal strias especially toward the upper end. Sides with a trace of 

 different tissue, apparently the remains of the outer slightly fleshy layer 

 of the integument, which is also the cause of the strige upon the surface 

 of the testa. 



This species is based upon a single rather well preserved specimen 

 which comes from the blue charcoal clay of Coffins' Bank at Muirkirk. 

 It is the most cycad-like of any of the fruits referred to this genus and 

 is almost certainly the fruit of some one of the Maryland Potomac 

 cycads. The entire outer integument was slightly fleshy and the inner 

 one stony as in the modern members of this group. If the fossil be 

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