G. H. Wieland — Wllliamsonian Tribe. 



457 



Yet other species or genera occur in abundance in the Oax- 

 acan country, and through the courtesy of Senor Aguilera, the 

 director of the Mexican Geological Survey, I am enabled to 

 give figures 14, 15 A and B, and 17 G, showing characteristic 

 features, in advance of the publication of my memoir on the 

 Fossil Plants of the Mixteca Alta now in course of completion. 



Fig. 14. 



Fig. 14. Surface details of various ovulate strobili of Williamsonia dis- 

 covered by the writer on the Rio Consuelo of Oaxaca, Mexico, x 7/4 nearly. 



A, sterile, A 1 , B, partly sterile and partly fertile areas. B 1 , B 2 , an appar- 

 ently different species from the preceding with, large sterile scales occupy- 

 ing all the lower half of the fruit axis. In B 2 the outer nail-head like ends 

 of the scales have in breaking the matrix so split away as to reveal the stem 

 mass beneath. The drawing shows all of the fruit conserved. 



As will be noted from the figures, the surface characters are 

 often very clear ; though it is only occasionally that a fairly 

 complete crushed cone was found. 



Easily the most curious fructification is that shown in figure 

 15 A with exactly the outlines of a short leafy seed resembling 

 Gnetum gnemon. At first these forms as found closely 

 associated with a slender poorly conserved branching stem, and 

 nowhere else, were thought to be bract-surrounded ovulate 

 strobili of the usual Williamsonian type, though small. 



But they have the apical depression seen in Gnetum seeds, 

 and the leafy appendages cannot be made out to have the over- 

 lap of bracts. In view of certain resemblances of the Cycade- 

 oidea seeds to those of Gnetum, the possibility of further rela- 

 tionship here indicated is highly suggestive. 



