Mesoxylon and an Allied Genus. 1 1 
on the inner side. In ours the distal bands, where they are distinct, are 
more numerous. The parenchyma is large-celled, especially towards the 
middle, just as in ours. The vascular bundle is described as identical with 
a single nerve of the vegetative leaf of Cordaites ( 1 . c., p. 34); in our 
specimens it is mesarch, which comes to the same thing. Bertrands Fig. 41 
shows a bundle exactly like that of an imperfectly preserved bract in one 
of our specimens. In the basal part of the bract the fibrous bands disappear 
just as in ours. Bertrand speaks of hairs on the bracts, which have not 
been detected in our specimens. 
Considering that there is no question of specific identity, the agree- 
ment between the branches in our specimens and the floral buds of the 
F rench fructifications is remarkably close. Taking both general morphology 
and detailed structure into consideration, we may conclude with confidence 
that our fertile shoots with their branches are of the same nature as the 
inflorescences of Cordaites ; they constitute, in fact, the Cordaianthus of 
Mesoxylon multirame. 
The question remains, Of what sex was this Cordaianthus} The detailed 
comparison has been with a female fructification, but there was little 
difference in general morphology and structure between the two sexes. 
Male catkins, however, are short-lived organs, and it is hardly likely that 
we should find the accessory parts mature and fairly preserved without 
some trace of the stamens themselves. Also any force that association 
may have tells in favour of the fertile shoots having been seed-bearing 
organs. Supposing that this was their nature, it is probable that some 
of the Mitrospermums which we find in the neighbourhood of the fertile 
shoots, especially the younger seeds, may have been borne on them and 
become detached. In the best known female specimens of Cordaianthus 
the seeds are borne laterally on the catkin, each terminating a short 
pedicel, probably in the axil of a bract (Bertrand, 1911 , p. 37). The ovules 
are surrounded by the bracts of the catkin, from among which the ripening 
seed may emerge. We have found no satisfactory evidence of the presence 
of seed-pedicels, for the ‘ appendage ’ appears to have been of the nature of 
a bract, except perhaps in the one case shown in Text-fig. 1 and PI. Ill, 
Fig. 17, and even here, as we have seen, the interpretation of the appendage 
as a branchlet or pedicel is open to some doubt. Unfortunately, then, we 
are at present unable to explain how the seeds were borne, and the solution 
of the question must await the discovery of more perfect specimens. 
Possibly the seed may have been terminal on the branch. 
In any case the nature of the fertile shoot of Mesoxylon midtiranie as 
a Cordaianthus has been sufficiently demonstrated. 
