l.-.l! 



G. /<'. Wicland — Williamsonian Tribe. 



That even the embryos can be outlined in the casts without 

 actual silicitication or calcification is proven by the presence of 

 dicotyledonous embryos in the Oycadeoidean strobilar cast 

 Amph ihcn n-ettites Renaulti (Fliche, 1896). 



Newly Discovered Strobili. — For nearly a century the Wil- 

 liamsonian casts clearly showing seeds have been limited to 

 the oft-mentioned specimen thought by Buckland to be an 

 ancient Pandanus, and so clearly figured in the Bridgewater 

 Treatise that despite the fact that the original has seemingly 



Fig. 13. 



Fig. 13. Williamsonia gigas. x 1/2. Base of an ovulate strobilus with 

 large peduncle scar. Conservation ends at the beginning of the ovulate 

 region except in one small area where three fully outlined seeds of about 

 the same size and form as in the larger species of Cycadeoidea may be seen. 

 This is one of the very few instances in which such seeds appear and fully 

 confirm the nature of these fruits. (Yale -James Yates Collection.) 



disappeared from view, it is clear that little improvement in 

 illustration could be made except with respect to contained 

 embryos. But as related in the Botanical Gazette (22), the 

 Buckland fruit has now been complemented by a mould of a 

 closely related species found by the writer in Oaxaca, from 

 which clay casts were readily made showing the fruit in nearly 

 full lateral relief. The presence of a low conical-shaped apex 

 formed by sterile organs, quite in agreement with other William- 

 sonias, appears to be the only difference from the Buckland stro 

 bilus, which so far as one may judge from the figure had the 

 apical region all fertile. Whence it appears that both in the 

 Williamsonia and Cycadeoidea series both kinds of apex are 

 present, the prolonged form obviously being the more primitive. 



