234 Scientific Intelligence. 



The most striking- biologic feature of the volume is the very 

 beautiful and varied series of Magnoliaceae so well represented 

 at Gay Head and at Glen Cove (L. I.). The disks referred to 

 Wittiamsonia with much reservation, we are, however, con- 

 vinced, are not such. The floral imprint, PI. V, figure 28, has a 

 slender bractless peduncle unlike any Wittiamsonia / so, too, fig- 

 ure 29 of the same plate, in which the cyclic organs may well be 

 sepals or petals rather than sporophylls, as further suggested by 

 the allied species, PL V, figure 32. That none of these inflor- 

 escences can be truly cycadean, is also to be questioned because 

 of the singular lack of associated cycadean leaves ; for the leaves 

 shown on PL VI, figures 1 and 3, and referred to Podozamites, 

 can scarcely be cycadophytes at all, their venation being strictly 

 parallel instead of dichotomous. In regard to Podozamites 

 lanceolatus, PL II, figure 1, the suspicion is certainly strong that 

 it is a pauciform-leaved Kauri pine, perchance the foliage per- 

 taining to the scales named Dammar a borealis from the same 

 locality; while PL V, figure 31 may possibly indicate part of an 

 Actinostrobus cone. In this absence of cycads, if not, therefore 

 the heads of Composite, are not the discoid flowers of the Island 

 series magnoliaceous and of the same species as the varied and 

 partly primitive liriodendrid leaves with whieh they are so intim- 

 ately associated? It may well be that Strobilitites perplexvs, PL II, 

 figure 43, which as Hollick suggests is magnolia-like, and the disk 

 shown on PL V, figure 32, are respectively the seed-cone and the 

 petals of Liriodendropsis simplex; all are from Gay Head. 

 Indeed, it does not seem impossible that by means of a careful 

 study of occurrences, one or more of the several species of flowers 

 in question may be eventually placed with the foliage to which 

 it presumably belongs. At leasr, there is an apparent absence of 

 cycads which in so far as it is real brings the Island Series into still 

 stronger contrast with the certainly older Arundel of the 

 Potomac System of Maryland and the Dakota of the Black Hills, 

 both of which may be synchronous with the Kome, although of 

 slightly more archetypal cast. 



Monograph L is in admirably clear form and most excellent in 

 every way, although we think that a locality map, with illustra- 

 tions of important localities, would have been neither superfluous 

 nor unwelcome. g. r. w. 



2. Life and Work of Bernard Renault (Presidential Ad- 

 dress) ; by D. II. Scott. Jour. Roy. Micr. Soc, 1906, pp. 129- 

 145. — Renault ranks as one of the most productive and greatest 

 of all students of paleobotany; and the rich results of his struc- 

 tural studies together with his rare devotion to the investigation 

 of fossil plants, after earlier training and labor as a professor of 

 chemistry, command universal admiration. Doubtless the redin- 

 tegration of Cordaites by Renault and Grand'Eury stands easily 

 as the most remarkable achievement of paleobotanical science. 



G. R. w. 



