A rich fossil biota from the Upper Pennsylvanian 7-11 mine of eastern Ohio contains numerous vegetative and fertile compression/impression specimens that conform to a single species of primitive walchian conifers. Among these specimens is a compound pollen cone that is superficially similar to an ultimate vegetative shoot. However, chemical maceration with HF reveals that the specimen has small appendages and pollen sacs in the axil of each bract. The cone is cylindrical, 8.2 cm long, and 0.9 mm in maximum width. Bracts are simple, linear, 3 - 5 mm long, and 1 - 2 mm wide. Stomata are distributed across the entire adaxial surface. Bracts subtend a single axillary dwarf shoot with five to eight sterile scales, and 3-4 sporophylls with terminal pollen sacs. Sterile scales are borne on the side of the dwarf shoot axis that faces the bract, and laterally. They overlap each other as if borne in a helical arrangement. Sterile scales are simple, linear with adaxial stomata. Pollen sacs are upright, ellipsoidal with a rounded tip. The pollen sacs occur only on the side of the dwarf shoot that faces the cone axis. Grains correspond to the sporae dispersae genus Potonieisporites Bharadwaj. They are monosaccate, with a proximal, bent monolete suture, and a maximum diameter of 62 - 130 m in polar views. This specimen provides the first unequivocal evidence that some Paleozoic conifers produced compound pollen cones that are morphologically equivalent to the ovulate cones of ancient conifers, and to the pollen cones of Paleozoic cordaitaleans and modern gnetophytes.

Key words: Compound Pollen Cone, Conifer, Fossil, Paleozoic