HOOKER LECTURE, 1922. | 227 
MATONINEÆ AND DIPTERIDINÆ. 
Members of these two families, linked by morphological ties, often grow 
side by side: Wallace, in describing an ascent of Mt, Ophir in the middle of 
the Malay Peninsula 50 miles east of Malacca, wrote :—* We emerged into a 
lofty forest pretty clear of undergrowth” and at a higher level “came out 
upon the Padang-Batu or stone-field .... parts of it were quite bare, but 
where it was cracked or fissured there grew a luxuriant vegetation, among 
which the Pitcher plants were most remarkable. ... A few Conifers of the 
genus Dacrydium here first appeared, and in the thickets, just above the 
rocky surface, we walked through groves of those splendid ferns, Dipteris 
Horsfieldü [=D. conjugata] and Matonia pectinata, which bear large 
spreading fronds on slender stems, 6 or 8 feet high." Many years later 
Mr. Tansley in speaking of the same locality mentions Gleichenia linearis, 
G. flagel'aris with Dipteris conjugata and Pteridium aquilinum as the constant 
associates of Matonia. A short distance below the summit of the mountain 
Wallace collected plants of Schizea dichotoma *. 
If we could interpret the mystic utterances of these Ferns of the Malayan 
mountain as the Priestesses professed to interpret the rustling of the Oak 
leaves at Dodona, we should hear thrilling stories of world-wide wanderings 
aud glean something of the ancestral history of the members of the company, 
a revelation which might perhaps confound or elate more than one Hooker 
lecturer. 
Dipreripins. The genus /ipleris, represented by at least six species, has 
a creeping rhizome with a tubular stele and reticulately veined fronds varying 
considerably in the degree of dissection of the lamina. /ipleris conjugata, 
the most widely distributed species, occurs in the Malay region, the 
Philippine Islands, Formosa, New Guinea, New Caledonia, the New 
Hebrides, and elsewhere. 
A closely-allied species grows in Yunnan, From a slender petiole reaching 
a height of 7 or 8 feet a broad lamina spreads more or less horizontally, and 
resembles in habit a large branch of a Giant Hemlock leaf or the broad leaf 
of a Petasites : a deep sinus divides it into symmetrical halves with finger- 
like serrate lobes. The sori, varying much in size, are often confluent, and 
are of the mixed type. Dipteris Wallichti, of Northern India, has similar 
leaves, but the ultimate segments are entire. The Bornean species, 
D. Nieuwenhiusi, is smaller though similar in habit. In D. Lobbiana, 
another Bornean fern, the petiole branches at its summit into a series of 
forked linear pinnæ bearing rows of sori; in this species the sporangial 
development is simultaneous. The frond of I. quinguefurcata, a species 
with a wider range, is constructed on the same plan but has broader pinnæ. 
It is the distinction between the laterally continuous lamina of D. conjugata 
* Wallace’s specimens are in the British Museum Herbarium. 
