Young Floral Structures. 617 



small leaf bases. There is very little suggestion of fruits 

 in the outer armor, which is not deep, though well con- 

 served above, as betokened by the even black color and 

 rough outer surface. Below, the regularly thinner 

 armor shows that excision was going on. It was accord- 

 ingly an agreeable surprise to find on the radial surface 

 of the trunk wedge only a few centimeters out from the 

 apical bud, a small bract-enveloped fruit cut nearly in the 

 longitudinal plane ; and interest grew when it was seen 

 that although the diameter of the ovulate cone was only 5 

 millimeters the seed zone was far more developed than in 

 the numerous cones where minuteness of this zone indi- 

 cates the monoecious condition known to occur in some 

 species. 



On cutting the longitudinal section, fig. 1 [or ^.g. 55 of 

 these studies] it was found under the microscope that the 

 young disk was also clearly outlined as a thin envelope 

 evenly investing the central cone inside the ramentaceous 

 bracts. Study, however, depends on this single section. 

 As in the case of "coal ball" seeds like Lagenostoma 

 lomaxi of nearly the same size as the present cone and 

 its disk, so in such small isolated fruits it is oftenest the 

 single section fortuitously cut which is all that can read- 

 ily be secured — not the exactly median longitudinal, or 

 the serial transverse sections one would so much wish. 

 So, here, after the loss of saw cuts there was no further 

 section of critical interest which could be cut from this 

 bud. Nevertheless the section passes near enough to the 

 median plane to show the general form of the ovulate 

 cone and allow the inference that three or four small 

 deeply stained areas between the outer disk and the apex 

 of the cone are the short decurved tips of microsporo- 

 phylls of the spurred Cycadeoidean type. It is also to be 

 inferred that a small dome was already formed by the 

 spurs; while the even thickness and smooth outlines of 

 the disk indicate that neither pinnules nor synangia had 

 as yet developed. Curiously enough the scalariform 

 tracheids of the woody cylinder of the peduncle show 

 remarkably distinct preservation at certain points, even 

 extending well up into the strobilus itself. Such tissues 

 have already been figured from much larger immature 

 cones, being unmistakable evidence that the woody cylin- 

 der of the Cycadeoids was primitively scalariform. 



