Historic fossil cycads ; Accelerated cone growth in Pinus / by G.R. Wieland.
- George Reber Wieland
- Date:
- 1908
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Historic fossil cycads ; Accelerated cone growth in Pinus / by G.R. Wieland. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE [FOUR T H SERIES .] Aet. IX.—Historic Fossil Cycads ; by G. R. Wieland. The silicified cycadeoideau trunks, Cycadeoidea etrusca Cap- ellini et Solms, conserved in the Aldrovaudi Museum at Bologna, and C. Reichenbachiana (Goeppert) Solms of the Zwinger Mu- seum at Dresden, must certainly be reckoned amongst the most distinctly famous of all fossil plants.* For both these fossils are of the greatest structural interest ; and while the former has a fair claim to be regarded as the most anciently collected of all geological specimens, the latter has the double distinction of having been longer conserved in museums than any other cycad trunk, and of long having been the largest known speci- men of its kind. In fact it still remains in the foremost rank among the very largest of all silicified cycads, since it is only a segment of a single trunk ; whereas our American specimens of a greater size are either complete columnar trunks or else great branching trunks. Furthermore, while Cycadeoidea etrusca has the distinction of having yielded the first clue to the approximate position of staminate fructification in the Cycadeoidege through Count Solms’ discovery of its pollen grains, the great Zwinger Museum trunk is in no small meas- ure notorious as au unstudied specimen which has urgently demanded study for quite a hundred years,—that is, ever since * The original description of Cycadeoidea etrusca is given in the contri- bution of Capellini and Solms, I tronchi di Bennettitee dei Musei Italiani, Notizie storiche. geologiche, botaniche, Mem. d. R. Acead. d. Sc. dell’ 1st. di Bologna, Ser. IV, vol. x. 1890. The chief data relating to the history of Cycadeoidea Reichenbachiana have been brought together by Professor Ward under the caption “A Famous Fossil Cycad,” in this Journal, vol. xviii, July, 1904. Direct references to these and other papers mentioned, or facts cited here, may be found in the writer’s work. “American Fossil Cycads,” Publication No. 34 of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Washington, August, 1906. Am. Jour. Sci.—Fourth Series, Von. XXV, No. 146.—February, 1908. r-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2241017x_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
