46 L. F. Ward — Famous Fossil Cycad. 



reproductive organs, and compares them with those of both 

 Gycadeoidea microphylla and Cycas revoluta, saying that as 

 the buds grow out branches are formed. 



The principal figure of the trunk (pi. viii, fig. 4), furnished, as 

 he says by Geinitz, represents, about one-eighth natural size, the 

 side opposite to that shown in the photograph sent me by G-einitz. 

 The specimen here stands more erect, and though inverted 

 shows less of the base. Fig. 5, which Goppert calls the ki obere 

 Querschnitt," is a view of the base, and the structureless area 

 on the upper left portion represents a large oblique fracture, 

 which I described as the loss of a "large piece extending to the 

 medulla and running out 28 cm above, with a width of 43 cm ." 

 Plate ix represents natural size an area 20 cm wide and 215 mm high 

 near the base, which is still at the top of the figure, showing 

 several of the larger reproductive organs, one of which, though 

 here drawn as if the spadix had fallen out, is of special interest 

 in showing a radiate structure with carpel-like partitions that 

 may contain seeds. 



Plate viii, figs. 6 (natural size) and 7 (somewhat enlarged) 

 represent a cross section of a small piece from this trunk, 

 apparently a leaf scar containing the base of a petiole, which 

 Goppert says was sent him by Reichenbach at an earlier date, 

 and which he seems to have cut transversely and figured him- 

 self. He recognizes resin ducts and parenchymatous cells, but 

 finds no vascular bundles. I was myself unable to see any vas- 

 cular bundles in the leaf bases. They are either indistinguish- 

 able from the parenchyma or else they lie close to the walls and 

 blend with the partition lines. 



In 1858 Geinitz issued one of the reports on the Dresden 

 Museum which, bear the title : Das Konigliche Mineralogische 

 Museum in Dresden, in which he gave a succinct history of the 

 Museum from its earliest beginnings. It does not, however, 

 contain any of the above facts relative to this specimen, which is 

 only once mentioned (p. 17), in connection with the great three 

 days' fire of 1849, during which the greater part of the collec- 

 tions thus far accumulated were destroyed. " Only one speci- 

 men, the precious Haumeria Reichenbaclii Goppert, a cycad 

 from Wieliczka, remained unscathed under the protection of a 

 sandstone pillar." 



The next mention that I find of this species is in Miquel's 

 Proclromus Systematis Cycadearum, published at Utrecht and 

 Amsterdam in 1861 (p. 29). It adds nothing to the knowledge 

 of it. 



Equally without significance is the allusion to it by Geinitz 

 in his Dyas (Heft II, 1862, pp. 148, 341), except for his refer- 

 ence of it to the Permian, which was only a guess and of course 

 a wrong one. 



