Berry — A Pseudocycas from British Columbia. 183 



Aet. XIII. — A Pseudocycas from British Columbia; by 

 Edwaed W. Beeey. 



The earlier workers with the profuse remains of cyca- 

 dophyte fronds that are so characteristic of the Mesozoic 

 throughout the world, recognized two general types, which 

 from their resemblance to existing cycad genera, they 

 christened Zamites and Cycadites. 



It was very many years later and largely as a result of 

 the anatomical studies of petrified trunks that it became 

 apparent that the vast majority of the Mesozoic cycads 

 represented extinct groups somewhat removed botan- 

 ically from the still existing members of the phylum. 



One of the most interesting of the frond genera, for- 

 merly called Cycadites and superficially much like the 

 fronds of the existing oriental genus Cycas, is now known 

 as Pseudocycas. This new proposal we owe to Nathorst, 

 who in 1907 demonstrated that the supposed thick midrib 

 of Heer's West Greenland material represented a median 

 groove on the lower surface of the pinnule, to which 

 groove the stomata were restricted. 



A species of Cycadites was described by Dawson in 

 1883^ from fairly complete specimens collected by Selwyn 

 at Pine River Forks, Table Mountain, and on Peace River, 

 25 miles above Dunvegan, both localities in British Colum- 

 bia. The sandstone from which the Table Mountain 

 material was obtained is said to have contained Inocera- 

 mus altus. Dawson very naturally referred this form to 

 the genus Cycadites of Brongniart, and compared it with 

 Cycadites dichsoni Heer from West Greenland, calling 

 attention to the facts that the former had a stouter rachis, 

 more acute pinnules at more acute angles with the rachis. 

 Subsequently Penhallow^ tentatively identified Cycadites 

 unjiga from two localities along the International Bound- 

 ary Survey route. These were Sheep Creek valley just 

 southeast of Roseland, and between Pasayten and Skagit 

 rivers in the Cascade Range. These localities he was 

 inclined to consider of Shasta age, but as this author's 

 specific determinations are invariably unreliable these 

 records may well be ignored. 



^ Dawson, J. W., Trans. Eoy. Soc. Can. ser. 1, vol. 1, sec. 4, p. 20, pi. 1, figs. 

 2, 2a, 2b, 1882 (1883). 



* Penhallow, D. P., Idem., ser. 3, vol. 1, sec. 4, p. 308, 1908. 



