In the form and structure of the fertile shoots _Cordaites_ parts company with _Agathis_; the trees bore no cones in the ordinary sense, but unisexual inflorescences—whether on one plant or on different individuals is uncertain—were produced in the axils or from a supra-axillary position as compound spikes or compact racemes. Both the longer female shoots and the shorter and more compact male branches are constructed on a similar plan. The ovulate inflorescence may exceed 30 cm. in length (fig. 479); a stout axis bears two-ranked linear bracts subtending short lateral bud-like shoots with one or several sessile or stalked ovules (fig. 480) between the sterile scales. The seeds are platyspermic and agree much more closely with those of Cycads and _Gingko_ than with the seeds of Conifers. The male inflorescence is on a smaller scale, in habit not unlike the elongated male shoot of _Cephalotaxus pedunculata_ and some other Conifers; each bract subtends a small oval bud composed of imbricate scales and highly modified microsporophylls borne singly or in clusters (figs. 481, F; 482). A microsporophyll consists of a comparatively long pedicel bearing at its apex a few long microsporangia. The term microsporophyll implies a morphological interpretation which is not accepted by all palaeobotanists, some of whom prefer to regard the microsporangia as stamens or microsporophylls reduced to their simplest terms and sessile on an elongated flower-stalk. The stem agrees very closely in its more important features with that of an _Araucaria_ or an _Agathis_: the primary xylem forms the inner surface of the thick cylinder of secondary wood, merging gradually into it as in recent Conifers; there are no separate bundles of primary centripetal xylem. The medullary rays are narrow: in other words the secondary xylem is of the pycnoxylic type. The pitting of the tracheids is Araucarian and, as in _Agathis_, the leaf-traces arise as twin-bundles. The pith is larger than in the Araucarineae and more homogeneous in structure; it shares with the pith of _Juglans_ and some other recent plants an almost constant tendency to assume a discoid structure. Anatomically the leaves agree more closely in the structure of the vascular bundles with Cycads than with Conifers though there are points of contact with both of these classes. The roots branch freely and their horizontally extended arms (figs. 468, A; 478) suggest growth in swampy ground; anatomically they conform to the recent Gymnospermous type and there is good evidence that in some cases fungal mycelia lived symbiotically in the cortex of coralline rootlets.