96 G. B. Wieland — Historic Fossil Cycacls. 



ideation period well illustrated by Cycadeoidea megalophylla 

 Bucldand ; and, as indicated by large groups of bracts marking 

 the individual axes of fructification, and especially by the mam 

 ner in which the bracts close in compactly at the center of the 

 bract groups, many young fruits are present. Of these fruits 

 three, and perhaps more, are very clearly in the bisporangiate 

 or nondehiscent-disk or flower-bud stage so well exhibited by 

 our American specimens. Moreover, in one of these three 

 buds the disk structure is strikingly clear. In it the curved 

 middle portions of the unexpanded and presumably bipinnate 

 microsporophylls have been so eroded away as to clearly 

 reveal in transverse section sixteen circularly disposed micro- 

 sporophyll rachides. And one may plainly see that these sec- 

 tions of the rachides of triangular outline abut and enclose 

 an inner mass of closely packed and wonderfully conserved 

 synangia of large size, rising above and concealing a central 

 ovulate cone. The individual synangia are evidently attached 

 to the rachides in normal position. This is the first time 

 that the presence of such silicified flowers has been definitelv 

 confirmed in European trunks.* 



In size and general structure the bisporangiate strobilus of 

 C. Reichenbacliiana with its 16 microsporophylls closely agrees 

 with that of G. dacotensis with 17 or 18, with perhaps a decid- 

 edly interesting difference in the apparently larger size of the 

 synangia. The structure of the synangia is unquestionably 

 preserved ; indeed, although familiar with quite 1,000 trunks, 

 I know of no other fossil cycad so beautifully and magnificently 

 silicified as G. Reichenbacliiana. It is even probable that the 

 entire structure of the staminate fronds as well as the synangia 

 is preserved in the greatest perfection, whence it is of very 

 distinct interest to paleobotanists that, as 1 was informed at 

 Dresden, Solms-Laubach is soon to carry out an exhaustive 

 histologic study of this famous fossil cycad. 



* I am unable to reconcile the features of C. Reichenbacliiana with the 

 drawing of the " Bruchstilek" given by Goeppert on Plate IX of the Jubi- 

 laums Denkschrift, published in 1853. In fact not only this, but all the 

 accompanying figures are of that uncertain value so characteristic of most 

 illustrations of fossils previous to the extended use of photography, — and 

 that they are quite inexact has already been observed by Professor Ward. 



With the Dresden cycad before me it seemed that the large Williamsonia- 

 like fruit nearly 5 centimeters in diameter and so prominent in Goeppert's 

 Plate IX must pertain to an accompanying fragment, or even to another 

 specimen ; but as the text of the Denkschrift gives no clue to any such, I 

 must conclude that during or since the time of Goeppert the fruit illus- 

 trated was partly or wholly broken away. 



Goeppert supposed these axes to be vegetative and like the lateral buds of 

 old Cycas stems: but Professor Ward notes that they are fruits and thought 

 seeds must be found in some. In which he is wholly correct, since nearly 

 all must bear young ovulate cones hidden beneath the thick husk of enclos- 

 ing bracts, which is in the great majority of cases all that can be seen at the 

 surface of the trunk. Fully fifty young floral axes are present. 



