THE 



AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 



[FOURTH SERIES.] 



Abt. IX.— Historic Fossil Cycads / by G. R. Wieland. 



The silicified cycadeoidean trunks, Cycadeoidea etrusca Cap- 

 ellini et Solms, conserved in the Aldrovandi Museum at Bologna, 

 and C. ReichenbacJiiana (Goeppert) Solms of the Zwinger Mu- 

 seum at Dresden, must certainly be reckoned amongst the most 

 distinctly famous of all fossil plants.* For both these fossils are 

 of the greatest structural interest ; and while the .former has 

 a fair claim to be regarded as the most anciently collected of 

 all geological specimens, the latter has the double distinction 

 of having been longer conserved in museums than any other 

 cycad trunk, and of long having been the largest known speci- 

 men , of its kind. In fact it still remains in the foremost rank 

 among the very largest of all silicified cycads, since it is only a 

 segment of a single trunk ; whereas our American specimens 

 of a greater size are either complete columnar trunks or else 

 great branching trunks. Furthermore, while Cycadeoidea 

 etrusca has the distinction of having yielded the first clue to 

 the approximate position of staminate fructification in the 

 Cycadeoidese through Count Solms' discovery of its pollen 

 grains, the great Zwinger Museum trunk is in no small meas- 

 ure notorious as an unstudied specimen which has urgentty 

 demanded study for quite a hundred years, — that is, ever since 



* The original description of Cycadeoidea etrusca is given in the contri- 

 bution of Capellini and Solms, I tronchi di Bennettitee dei Musei Italiani, 

 Notizie storiche. geologiche, botaniche, Mem. d. E. Accad. d. Sc. dell' 1st. di 

 Bologna, Ser. IV, vol. x, 1890. 



The chief data relating to the history of Cycadeoidea Reichenbachiana 

 have been brought together by Professor Ward under the caption "A Famous 

 Fossil Cycad," in this Journal, vol. xviii, July, 1904. Direct references to 

 these and other papers mentioned, or facts cited here, may be found in the 

 writer's work, "American Fossil Cycads," Publication No. 34 of the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington. Washington, August, 1906. 



Am. Jour. Sci.— Fourth Series, Vol. XXV, No. 146.— February, 1908. 



