The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-11-09
Find Flowers In F Fossil
 Beds

years ago are being preserved at the Yale botanical laboratory by Prof. G.. R. Wieland, expert on fossil cycad flowers. These flowers are not exactly the kind that you pick up in little bououet to carry home with you, writes D. K. Titus in the New York World. Nevertheless, the average individual can distinguish in them the appearance of flowers, and to the botanist they are so full of meaning that he can re- construct articifically the full form of the flower as it bloomed long before man appeared on the earth.
 Dr. Wieland has shelves and shelves of these specimens. They appear to be merely rocks with holes in them.
 Dr. Wieland shows fascinating micro scope slides, and one becomes convinced that these rocks with holes in them have the characteristics of modern flowers.
 First Seeks His Fossils
 Pollen and seeds-even these appear in perfect and convincing form on, the slides. "Is this real pollen ?" one asks
 The professor replies: Not exactly 1; it is petrified pollen" It would not give one the rose cold; nevertheless, when viewed by the eye it has all the charac- teristics of pollen"
 One also sees fronds that resemble fronds of modern ferns. It all comes out in a process Dr. Wieland has de- veloped. He goes to the Southern Black hills in South Dakota. There he has worked patiently with a pick-ax un- earthing the specimens. After the rock or flower has been dug up, it can be more carefully studied if it is drilled so the inner structure can be examined. The inner surface is polished and by special process stereoptician and micro scope slides are made.
 Yale has a collection of some of the best specimens of the cycad ever un- earthed. The collection assembled by Dr. Wieland is remarkable for the un- usually realistic representation of the stems on which the flowers grew. It also contains an important study series of thin cross sections of the fossil plant.
 Resembled Tulips
 Professor Wieland says:
 Anyone familiar with the outer form of the flowers of the common tulip tree or any member of the mag nolia family, to which the tulip tree belongs, should readily understand the structure of flowers of the long extinct cycads.
 "When the cycad flowers were first described they were compared with the flowers of the tulip tree and this com parison is still scientifically instruc- tive. But to go into further details would mean a discussion of structure releaved only by the microscope. In general, however, the fact may be em- phasized that the discovery of these strange flowers that bloomed millions of years ago has aided greatly in the study of the history of modern plants, a subject that had not before come within the range of scientific discus sion.
 Ancestor Of Modern Flowers
 "By 'petrified forests is ordinarily meant the more or less scattered and barkless stems of trees turned to stone or, more accurately speaking, replaced by stone and then in the course of time eroded, or weathered out from the, con tainipg rocks. But nowhere are there actual flowers and foliage as in the case of the sycad flowers, of the Black hills of South Dakota, where the petri- fled stems of coniferous trees related to modern trees are also found.
 ''All flowers are ancestrally related to these cycad flowers. The cycads are somewhat like the cactus.
 Little is known of flowers belonging to past ages. Thus there is a great field for investigation. The reason for the lack of knowledge is that it is very difficult for nature to preserve flowers as it does the remains of animals. A flower dies very quickly, hence there is little chance for fossilization. The proc ess of fossilization is thus: The plants silica"