Cycadean Sentence Examples

Both were in turn replaced by the Lower Mesozoic flora, which again is thought to have had its birth in the hypothetical Gondwana land, and in which Gymnosperms played the leading part formerly taken by vascular Cryptogams. The abundance of Cycadean plants is one of its most striking features.

The line of descent of recent cycads is comparatively clear in so far as they have undoubted affinity with Palaeozoic plants which combined cycadean and filicinean features; but opinion is much more divided as to the nature of the phylum from which the conifers are derived.

A feature of interest in connexion with the phylogeny of cycads is the presence of long hairs clothing the scale-leaves, and forming a cap on the summit of the stem-apex or attached to the bases of petioles; on some fossil cycadean plants these outgrowths have the form of scales, and are identical in structure with the ramenta (paleae) of the majority of ferns.

In structure a cycadean sporangium recalls those of certain ferns (Marattiaceae, Osmundaceae and Schizaeaceae), but in the development of the spores there are certain peculiarities not met with among the Vascular Cryptogams. With the exception of Cycas, the female flowers are also in the form of cones, bearing numerous carpellary scales.

Before following the growth of the pollen-grain after pollination, we will briefly describe the structure of a cycadean ovule.

A thorough examination of cycadean seeds has recently been made by Miss Stopes, more particularly with a view to a comparison of their vascular supply with that in Palaeozoic gymnospermous seeds (Flora, 1904).

Brongniart, who was the first to investigate in detail the anatomy of a cycadean stem, recognized an agreement, as regards the secondary wood, with Dicotyledons and Gymnosperms, rather than with MonocoFIG.8.

Short and reticulately-pitted tracheal cells, similar to tracheids, often occur in the circummedullary region of cycadean stems. In an old stem of Cycas, Encephalartos or Macrozamia the secondary wood consists of several rather unevenly concentric zones, while in some other genera it forms a continuous mass as in conifers and normal dicotyledons.

The vascular system of cycadean seedlings presents some features worthy of note; centripetal xylem occurs in the cotyledonary bundles associated with transfusion-tracheids.

After fertilization the ovum-nucleus divides and cell-formation proceeds rapidly, especially in the lower part of the ovum, in which the cotyledon and axis of the embryo are differentiated; the long, tangled suspensor of the cycadean embryo is not found in Ginkgo.

A papery remnant of nucellus lines the inner face of the woody shell, and, as in cycadean seeds, the apical portion is readily separated as a cap covering the summit of the endosperm.

From an evolutionary point of view, it is of interest to note the occurrence of filicinean and cycadean characters in the maidenhair tree.

The vascular bundle entering the stern from a leaf with a single vein passes by a more or less direct course into the central cylinder of the stem, and does not assume the girdle-like form characteristic of the cycadean leaf-trace.

It has been suggested that transfusion-tracheids represent, in part at least, the centripetal xylem, which forms a distinctive feature of cycadean leaf-bundles; these short tracheids form conspicuous groups laterally attached to the veins in Cunninghamia, abundantly represented in a similar position in the leaves of Sequoia, and scattered through the so-called pericycle in Pinus, Picea, &c. It is of interest to note the occurrence of precisely similar elements in the mesophyll of Lepidodendron leaves.

The seed itself is of a Cycadean type, and radially symmetrical.

This is the first case in which the pollen-bearing organs of a Ptoridosperm have been identified with certainty It will be seen that, while the seeds of Lyginodendron were of an advanced Cycadean type, the microsporangiate organs were more like those of a Fern, the reproductive organs thus showing the same combination of characters which appears in the vegetative ct pc. A, Micropylar region.

The spirally arranged petioles (Myeloxylon) were of great size, and their decurrent bases clothed the surface of the stem; their (From structure is closely similar to that Studies.) of recent Cycadean petioles; in FIG.

Fertile leaflets, day, while fern like in habit bearing sporangia, and sterile, were Cycadean in structure.

Some authors have been so much impressed by the similarity of this extinct family to the Cycads, that they have regarded them as being on the direct line of descent of the latter group; it is more probable, however, that they formed a short divergent phylum, distinct, though not remote, from the Cycadean stock.

The Upper Carboniferous and Permian plants may be grouped together as constituting a Permo-Carboniferous flora characterized by an abundance of arborescent Vascular Cryptogams and of an extinct class of plants to which the name Pteridosperms has recently been assigned - plants exhibiting a combination of Cycadean and filicinean characters and distinguished by the production of true gymnospermous seeds of a complex type.

Angiopteris, have straight walls, and occasionally the surface cells of a Cycadean leaf-segment exhibit a fern-like character.

The abundance of Cycadean plants is one of the most striking features of Mesozoic floras.

In most cases we have only the evidence of sterile fronds, and this is necessarily unsatisfactory; but the occurrence of numerous stems and fertile shoots demonstrates the wealth of Cycadean plants in many parts of the world, more particularly during the Jurassic and Wealden periods.

With regard to the distinguishing features and the distribution of the numerous Cycadean leaves of Mesozoic age, the most striking fact is the abundance of as well in North America, throughout Europe.

Cycadean stems have recently been found in great abundance in Jurassic and possibly higher strata in Wyoming, South Dakota, and other parts of the United States.

Cycadean stems have been found also in the uppermost Jurassic, Wealden and Lower Cretaceous rocks of England, India and other parts of the world.

An example of an Indian Cycadean stem from Upper Gondwana rocks is represented in fig.

The fortunate discovery of several hundred Cycadean stems in the United States, of Lower Cretaceous and Upper Jurassic age, has supplied abundant material which has lately been investigated and is still receiving attention at the hands of Mr Wieland.

Professor Nathorst, as the result of a more recent examination of Heer's specimen, found that the segments of the frond are characterized by the presence of two parallel veins instead of a single midrib, with a row of stomata between them; for this type of Cycadean leaf he proposed the generic name Pseudocycas.

Another well-known Cycadean genus is Williamsonia, so named by Mr Carruthers in 1870, and now applied to certain pinnate fronds - e.g.

There can be little doubt that the majority of the Cycadean fronds of Jurassic and Wealden age, which are nearly always found detached from the rest of the plant, were borne on stems of the Bennettites type.

The leaves, borne on the regions between the false dichotomies, are those of Anomozamites minor, a type of Cycadean frond originally determined FIG.

Fossil flowers of a type more like that of modern Cycads are few in number, and it is not by any means certain that all of those described as Cycadean flowers and seeds were borne by plants which should be included in the Cycadophyta; a few female flowers have been described from Rhaetic rocks of Scania and elsewhere under the name Zamiostrobus - these consist of an axis with slender pedicels or carpophylls given off at a wide angle and bearing two ovules at the distal end; the structure is in fact similar to that of a Zamia female flower, in which the internodes of the peduncle have been elongated so as to give a looser arrangement to the carpels.