WED] THE BOULDER OYCAD. 381 
wall on that side, and in a few cases the wall has disappeared here, 
leaving the bud exposed on the upper side of the leaf scar. The buds 
are elliptical in form and average about 25 mm. in horizontal and 15mm. 
in vertical thickness (major and minor axes of cross section). They 
are flush with the upper edges of the walls and sometimes rise a little 
above them, but rarely project; still they serve to give the trunk a 
rough, uneven surface. They are never wanting so as to leave a cavity, 
and they all clearly show a concentric structure with a heterogeneous 
center, due to the form of the essential organs. Crescent-shaped bract 
scars occur, especially at the ends of the ellipse, but are not generally 
arranged all round theorgan. The bases of the bracts are often pre- 
served flush with the surface. The bract scars sometimes straggle 
away to some distance and appear in the walls remote from the buds, 
and there are a few abortive buds represented only by such scars. 
The armor is very thick and nearly the same on the flattened sides 
as on the rounded edge of the trunk. It is everywhere between 5 cm. 
and 6 cm., and some of the leaf bases exceed 6 cm. in length. It is beau- 
tifully shown all round the broken portions, where the leaf basis, the 
walls, and the reproductive organs are exposed. The last named are 
usually much decayed, at least in their outer portions, but the central 
parts may be preserved. Some of them resemble the Bennetties Mori- 
eret fruit studied by Lignier. 
The axis is well exposed over the whole surface of the vertical and 
oblique fracture, a length of 46 cm., and the somewhat regular line 
separating the armor from it is fairly distinct, but the internal tissue 
is an apparently homogeneous black, cherty, or partially chalcedonized 
rock, showing canchoidal fracture and revealing tomacroscopic inspec- 
tion no differentiation into layers or rings and no traces of bundles. 
There is a faint indication of the distinction between wood and pith. 
As seen along this broken surface, whether on the vertical fracture 
showing the longitudinal section or near the summit where the fracture 
makes an angle of about 45° to the axis, the thickness is nearly uni- 
form throughout and does not exceed7cm. Of this the medulla prob- 
ably occupies about 3 cm., leaving the wood on an average 2cm. thick. 
The axis, therefore, has the form of a flat slab, which may have 
been 20 or 25 cm. wide. The width to the vertical. fracture is over 
oc of the present year (1900) Mr. George R. bee 
who is engaged in working out the internal structure of the as a 
trunks at the Yale Museum, visited Washington for the purpose o 
sk ial in the United States National Museum, and 
examining the materia : : id vrobabl 
this trunk he expressed the belief that it wou probably 
oe ee especially in some of the numerous fruits, and offered 
omni it from this point of view if supplied with such parts as he 
