A New Cycad.—McBride. 249- 
to this genus but to illustrate its character unusually well. 
The specimens described were found (in company with forty 
or fifty more) weathered out on a hill top. The rocks below 
and above are sand, and if I may judge by such knowledge 
as I have at present, the fossils under present discussion are 
from the Lower Cretaceous or Jura-Trias. 
Bennettites dacotensis, n. s. Macbride. Plant for the most 
part silicified, plainly elliptical in section; the measurements 
for the specimen before me are : girth three feet six inches ; 
hight thirteen inches, longer diameter fourteen inches, shorter, 
eleven and one-half. The pith large, simply cellular, punctate 
where weathered, destitute of fibro-vascular bundles, sur- 
rounded by a woody cylinder which is from an inch to one inch 
and a quarter in thickness. The wood is divided at regular 
intervals by numerous medullary raj r s about one-half an inch 
in width. A thin rind or bark surrounds the woody cylinder 
and supports the bases of the leaves and leaf structures. 
Leaves not known ; their bases as perceived are fusiform or 
lozenge-shape in cross-section, one-half inch by one inch in 
dimensions, and show the remains of numerous equally de- 
veloped fibro-vascular bundles. Between the leaf-bases are 
numerous intervals filled up with structures (perhaps palea?) 
imperfectly preserved. Where the surface of the fossil is 
best preserved, the leaf-bases appear to have rotted away to 
a considerable distance inwardly, and the entire surface is 
pitted, and presents a clathrate or reticulate appearance 
Rising through the outer conglomeration of tissues, leaf- 
bases and adhering structures, appear numerous buds (fruit- 
buds?) ; these are about two inches in diameter and of equal 
hight, attached to the rind by a short cylindrical stem, and 
made up, outwardly, at least, of rather slender, scale-like 
leaves arranged in circular whorls. 
In habit the plants were solitary or in groups or clusters of 
two or three, apparently from the same base, and sometimes 
reached much greater dimensions than those recorded — being 
sometimes at least two feet high. 
The present species is near Bennettites gibsonianus Carr., 
from which it may be distinguished by greater size and by 
the fact that in our species the fibro-vascular bundles of the 
leaf-stems are of uniform size and distribution, and do not 
