102 
The Ohio Naturalist. 
[Vol. XIII, No. 6, 
the various members of primitive seed plants in the Carboni¬ 
ferous and Devonian, the conclusions drawn from these sources 
are no more reliable or fundimental than those from living forms, 
except that they aid in filling up gaps which occur among those 
surviving to the present time. 
What is needed, of course, is a series of ancestral fossils below 
the Devonian, leading up step by step through the successive 
geological formations, from a ptericlophyte ancestor to the Devon¬ 
ian Cordiates. The speculations of those who reason from fossils 
of lower order which occur after the higher have appeared are of 
no more weight than speculations based on the present flora, 
which is, after all. more reliable than the extremely fragmentary 
material of the fossil record. It may be stated that there are, at 
present, no evident data in support of the direct relationship of 
any gymnosperm classes unless we consider the Bennettilales 
as a class distinct from the Cycadales. The relationship of these 
two groups seems to be quite certainly established. But at 
present most systematists would probably agree that the Cycadales 
and Bennettilales are closely related orders. 
The strobili or cones of the Conifers are here regarded as 
true strobili and not as inflorescences, and Bessey’s view that 
the staminate and ovulate cones are strictly homologous is main¬ 
tained. When one compares the pine carpel, with its prominent 
ovuliferous scale, with the dwarf branch, one might easily be 
tempted to make them homologous; but when one goes a little 
further and finds the same peculiarities in the carpels of genera 
like Abies, where no dwarf branches exist, the conclusion has 
little or no weight. Much of the discussion as to the nature of 
the carpellate strobilus of the Pinaceas has been based on the 
occurrence of occasional abnormal structures, but one can find 
abnormal cones that argue for the view that the carpellate cones 
are true strobili and not inflorescences, just as well as one can 
find structures that would indicate the opposite. For example, 
Fischer has described an abnormal cone of Pinus larieio, the 
lower part of which had normal stamens and the outer end of 
the same axis had carpels of the usual type. This bisporangiate 
cone was in the position of a staminate cone beside a normal 
staminate cone. The carpels had the usual carpellate bract 
and ovuliferous scale. I regard the ovuliferous scale as a peculiar 
structure not homologous to either stem or leaf. The fleshy 
structures in the Taxales must be of a similar nature. The aril 
of Taxus, for example, is either homologous or analogous to the 
ovuliferous scales of Abies and Picea. 
The structure with the two ovules in Ginkgo is regarded as 
a megasporophyll, the whole cluster at the tip of the dwarf branch 
being simply a cluster of carpels. The same interpretation must 
then, of course, also be given to the staminate structures. The 
