G. R. Wieland — Historic Fossil Gycads. 97 



As we have seen, Cycadeoidea Reicheribachiana adds 

 another member to the long series of trunks extending from 

 columnar types which have mostly, though not always, large 

 leaf bases, to the great branching types from America, which 

 are mostly characterized by leaf bases of moderate or small 

 size. Moreover, while G. Reicheribachiana is a columnar 

 form, its flower bud agrees closely with that of the branching 

 cycads of the Black Hills, especially G. dacotensis. It there- 

 fore remains to add that in the light of these new facts con- 

 cerning long known European cycads, the family name 

 Cycadeoidese used by Robert Brown (1828) certainly includes 

 all the forms which English writers on fossil plants have much 

 later mistakenly placed in their so-called Bennettitese. Simi- 

 larly, the proposal that Cycadeoidea (1827) shall be the generic 

 term used for stems without recognizable fructifications cannot 

 be accepted for the simple reason that not only are the Buck- 

 land specimens vegetatively like the other trunks from Europe 

 as well as the American forms, but, to go no further than the 

 evidence afforded by the original descriptions, the tangential 

 section figured by Buckland eighty years ago clearly shows a 

 large and characteristic peduncular bundle. As to the genus 

 Bennettites (1867), this can at the very most include two or 

 three species so far as known, the great majority of the species 

 of Cycadeoidese falling within other genera. And so far as 

 truly problematic trunks of unknown fructification and really 

 doubtful vegetative characters are concerned, it only needs to 

 be remarked that there is already at hand for their reception a 

 plethora of such names as Yatesia, Withamia, Bechlesia, 

 Fittonia, Glathraria, Cylindropodium, and Bolbopodium. 

 It would certainly be as illogical to insist that we require to 

 relegate to a minor position a correctly used generic name for 

 the sake of a handy nomenclature for cycad trunks without 

 distinct or distinctly conserved fructifications, as it would be 

 to say that we can never learn the fructification of a fossil 

 whose vegetative features are the first to be discovered, or are, 

 as in this case, the Jlrsl to be understood. Clearly, therefore, 

 those who would further use the family name Bennittitese, or 

 the generic name Bennittites, in other than a wholly restricted 

 sense, must err in both these respects. 



Let us now turn our attention briefly to two of the cycadeoid 

 imprints and casts, which are quite as famous as the silicified 

 trunks just discussed, and which supplement and add to our 

 knowledge of the Cycadeoidese in such a remarkable manner, — 

 namely Williamsonia and Anomosamites. 



