74 G. B. Wieland — American Fossil Cyeads. 



dacotensis Macbride. In fact several cylindrical cores drilled 

 from this latter trunk contain bisporangiate strobili well enough 

 conserved to make it certain that they have the same structure 

 as those cut from such typical specimens of Cycadeoidea daco- 

 tensis as Yale trunk No. 214, illustrated at length in my 

 American Fossil Cyeads (Structure), Plates XXXY-XLli, 

 and especially the handsome State University of Iowa flower- 

 bud shown in the colored frontispiece and on Plate XXXIY. 



While likewise, bearing in mind that the present rectifica- 

 tion is only one of convenience, this same fate of relegation to 

 Cycadeoidea dacotensis apparently awaits the fine National 

 Museum trunk nominated as "the type and only perfect speci- 

 men" of Cycadeoidea Minnekahtensis ; for it too is a form 

 with medium to large-sized fructifications, and of the two 

 accompanying fragmentary paratopes the fine armor slab num- 

 bered 24 in the Yale collections and also figured in the original 

 description* has been studied at length and found to be a C. 

 dacotensis. Nor can we reconcile either C. colosscdis or Wellsii, 

 the only other species of antecedent description, with the lesser 

 flowered forms to which we wish to turn our attention. 



It thus follows from the material now before us and the 

 trunks secondarily referred to by Ward in his original descrip- 

 tions, as well as from the chronologic order of type discussion, 

 that while Cycadeoidea Marshiana is an unassailably well- 

 founded species, its actual characters are very different from 

 those for several years thought to mark it. Instead of being- 

 near to and difficultly distinguishable from C. dacotensis with 

 large flowers of eighteen to twenty microsporophylls, C. 

 Marshiana proves to be a small-flowered type with only 

 eleven or twelve microsporophylls of distinctly reduced form. 

 In fact these flowers are, as described below, the smallest of any 

 in the silicified series so far found complete. That several of 

 the trunks of mu«t smaller growth with far smaller fronds, like 

 C. rhombica and the evidently branched C. ?iana, bore even 

 smaller flowers, is known from various small fruits and ovulate 

 cones, but not so far from complete flowers. 



These latter, however, appear to be distinct, in consequence 

 of which C. Marshiana is now based on (1) the trunks men- 

 tioned above as figured under that name in my American Fos- 

 sil Cyeads, (2) those illustrated here, (3) certain other Yale 

 specimens enumerated by Ward,f and (4) the magnificent 

 quadruply -branched specimen several years since transferred 

 from the Yale collections to those of the Paris Museum. 

 While a further specimen requiring examination in this cen- 

 nection is the U. S. National Museum trunk No. 2 figured by 

 Ward as the type of C. Colei (loc. cit., PL CX). 



*Loc. cit., PI. LXXVIII. 



f- Loc. cit. and in this Journal, Nov. 1900. 



