Z. F. Ward — Famous Fossil Cycad. 45 



cycaclean trunk at Dresden belongs to the same genus [Rau- 

 meria Reiclienhachiana Gopp. manuscript)." It was, however, 

 nine years before the description and illustration appeared. 

 Meantime Unger listed it in his Synopsis Plantarum Fossilium, 

 1845, p. 163, and in his Chloris Protogsea of about the same 

 date, p. LXV. Goppert also put the name in his list contri- 

 buted to Bronn's Handbuch (vol. II, Abth. II, Th. Ill, Index 

 palaeontologicus, 1848), both in the Enumerator, p. 38, and the 

 Nomenclator, p. 1078, referring it to the lower "Molasse" or 

 Miocene. The naked name occurred at least four times more, 

 viz., in Unger's Genera et Species Plantarum Fossilium, 1850, 

 p. 301 ; in the same author's work : Die Pflanzenwelt der 

 Jetztzeit in ihrer historischen Bedeutung, 1851, p. 230; in 

 Massalongo's Conspectus Florae Tertiarise Orbis Primsevi, 1852, 

 p. 12 ; and in GiebePs work : Deutschlands Petrefacten, 1852, 

 p. 91 ; before Goppert's descriptive paper : Ueber die gegen- 

 wartigen Yerhaltnisse der Palaontologie in Schlesien so wie 

 iiber fossile Cycadeen, in which the specimen was fully treated, 

 finally appeared in the Jubilaums- Denkschrift der schlesischen 

 Gesellschaft fiir vaterlandische Cultur, Breslau, 1853, pp. 251- 

 265, pi. vii-x. 



In this paper we have a somewhat adequate description of 

 the specimen accompanied by five figures (pi. viii, figs. 4-7 ; 

 pi. ix), which, Goppert says, were furnished by Geinitz. He 

 dedicates the species, however, to Reichenbach, long Director 

 of the Dresden Museum, who, he says, had always afforded him 

 free access to the collections. From this we must infer that he 

 had studied the specimen himself at first hand. His historical 

 account is very brief, referring chiefly to Walch's description, 

 but making no mention of Eilenburg's. 



He says that the trunk is cylindrical, 24 inches high, 20-22 

 inches in diameter, transformed into an entirely black, chert- 

 like mass, showing very little structure. He classes it as the 

 trunk of a cycad and compares it with that of Cycas revoluta, 

 reproducing for comparison Yrolik's figure of a somewhat 

 remarkable specimen of that species (pi. x, fig. 3). He also com- 

 pares, or rather, contrasts it with Cycadeoidea microphylla of 

 Buckland, reproducing (pi. x, fig. 2) his figure in the Bridge- 

 water Treatise, vol. II, pi. lxi, fig. 1. He recognizes the scars 

 as those of the petioles, and says some are from one to two 

 inches deep. The prominent reproductive organs could not, of 

 course, have failed to attract his attention, and he refers to 

 them as the small scars that take the place of the large ones and 

 arrange themselves in circular or elliptical groups, which he 

 regarded as perhaps representing spots where buds are break- 

 ing through. Such buds, he says, really seem to have been 

 present here. He seems to have no idea of their being 



