BENNETTITEAE 579 



close agreement with those of recent Cycads of the 

 suborder Zamieae ; the vascular bundles were col- 

 lateral and mesarch, without radial arrangement of the 

 centrifugal wood or phloem. Speaking especially of 

 Cycadeoidea ingens, Dr. Wieland says, " Were one to 

 adjudge the taxonomic position of the fossil species 

 on the basis of its foliage only, one might, bearing in 

 mind the general absence of scale - leaves, place it 

 near Macrozamia or Encephalartosr l The leaves of 

 Cycadella only differ in details ; the structure of the 

 pinnules is found to be almost identical with that 

 in the recent Boweniar This close correspondence 

 in foliar characters with the recent Cycadaceae is 

 the more remarkable when we consider how totally 

 the two groups differed in their reproductive organs, the 

 organisation of which has only been fully revealed by 

 Dr. Wieland's researches. 



The European specimens had yielded scarcely any 

 information as to the nature of the microsporangiate 

 organs of the Bennettiteae. In an Italian species, 

 Cycadeoidea etrusca? bodies interpreted as pollen-grains 

 were discovered by Count Solms - Laubach in the 

 interior of a fructification, lying in the space between the 

 apex of the ovuliferous receptacle and the surrounding 

 bracts. Though, owing to bad preservation, the stamens 

 were not detected, the inference was drawn that they 



1 American Fossil Cycads, p. 94. 2 L.c. p. 101. 



3 The specimen was found on an Etruscan tomb at Marzabotto near 

 Bologna; Capellini and Solms-Laubach, "I tronchi di Bennettitee dei 

 Musei Italiani," Mem. d. R. Accad. delle Sc. delV 1st. di Bologna, 

 series v. vol. ii. 1892. Dr. Wieland, who has since reinvestigated the fruc- 

 tifications and found some further remains of structure, compares them 

 with those of Cycadella. See his " Historic Fossil Cycads," Amer. Journal 

 of Science, vol. xxv. February 1908, p. 93. 



38 



