Paleobotany. 355 



the flowers of the Angiosperms are likely to be the most primi- 

 tive. . . . The tendency of the older morphologists to regard 

 such flowers as reductions from a more perfect type appears fully 

 justified by the discovery of the elaboration of floral structure 

 attained by the Mesozoic Cycadophyta before the advent of the 

 Angiosperms themselves." These " remarkable organs," it is held, 

 "fully merit the name of 'flower' in the same sense in which we 

 apply it in everyday language to the flowers of our gardens and 

 fields." And Dr. Scott adds, " I am inclined myself to believe 

 that the comparison holds good from a morphological point of 

 view also." G. B. w. 



2. Beitrdge zur Morphogenie der Sporophylle unci des Tro- 

 phopylls in Bezeihung zur Phylogenie der Kormophyten / von 

 Dr. Hans Hallier. Jahrb. d. Hambnrgischen Wiss. Anst., xix, 

 1901 (3. Beiheft : Arb. der Bot. Inst.), [Hamburg, 1902], 110 

 pp. and 1 pi. — While on a recent visit at the home of Dr. D. H. 

 Scott, I was asked if I had seen this contribution of Hallier, and 

 replied that I was wholly unacquainted with his work. From 

 this explanation, it may be understood that it has been with a 

 deep interest that I have since read the above paper, certainly 

 one of the most brilliant contributions to a natural classification 

 of plants yet made. Strikingly clear is the statement of the 

 relationship of Anomozamites to the Magnoliaceae, written as 

 Hallier has himself since explained without knowledge of my 

 earlier contribution of June, 1901, on the Microsporangiate Fruc- 

 tification of Cyeadeoidea, in which I definitely compared the 

 bisexual flower-bud of that genus with Liriodendron. 



With the evidence I had then at first hand of the true type 

 of fructification in the Cycadeoideae, and of the innumerable 

 variations which such an obviously plastic form of flower would 

 be capable of undergoing, it was impossible to escape the con- 

 viction that a reasonable method of descent for the Angiosperms 

 was at least established. And, d fortiori, from the series of 

 steps involved in the course of its own evolution, this new type 

 of fructification indicated at once that the Magnoliacese rather 

 than any other group, such, for instance, as the Amentacese, 

 must be the most primitive of the Angiosperms ; though plainly 

 enough the flowers of ~Williamsonia and Cyeadeoidea were 

 already too far specialized to permit these genera or the immedi- 

 ate family to which they belong to stand in any genercd an- 

 cestral Angiosperm line. Later, in my American Fossil Cycads, I 

 contented myself with a simple insistence on the value of the 

 earlier statement, which I believe I was the first to make. 



That Hallier with his splendid knowledge of existing forms, 

 but with less paleontologic evidence before him, should have 

 independently reached such entirely similar conclusions, demon- 

 strates the completeness of the chain of facts, both botanic and 

 paleobotanic, proving indubitabl}'" the derivation of the Angio- 

 sperms from forms closely related to Anomozamites. For equally 

 with Hallier we regard this genus as the most significant cyca- 



