MAXON- — STUDIES OF TROPICAL AMERICAN FERNS. 31 



large light brown ovate scales 7 to 8 mm. long; stipe 10 1o 15 cm. long, striate, light 

 yellowish green, rather closely covered toward the base with large concolorous scales 

 like those of the rhizome, these somewhat persistent, gradually narrower and reduced 

 above; lamina 25 to 30 cm. long, 6 to 7 cm. broad, narrowly lanceolate, scarcely 

 reduced below, the pinnae subdistant or spaced about their own width, reduced 

 gradually in the upper half to a length of about 1 cm., giving way abruptly to a stout 

 naked flagelliform proliferous cauda 5 to 10 cm. long; characteristic middle pinnae 

 3 to 4 cm. long, 7 to 8 mm. broad, falcate, at the base acutely cuneate, the lower margin 

 widely excised, the upper sharply cuneate, auriculate, the margins otherwise rather 

 noticeably crenate-serrate (sometimes doubly so), always most deeply in the outer 

 half, the apex itself sharply acute; sori about 9 or 10 pairs, equidistant. 



Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, no. 523012, collected on a rocky ledge in 

 woods at the base of the Farallones of La Perla, near Monte Verde (north of Jaguey), 

 Yateras, Oriente, Cuba, altitude about 540 meters, by William R. Maxon, no. 4408, 

 May 2, 1907. Several sheets of this number which have been preserved show very 

 slight variation. 



P. decoratum is closest allied to the Jamaican P. rhizophorum, from which it differs 

 mainly in its larger and conform fronds, its narrower, longer, and falcate pinnae, and 

 glabrous under surface. There appears to be not the slightest tendency toward the 

 dimorphism so conspicuous in P. rhizophorum . The fronds are uniformly flagellate 

 and proliferous, many bearing at the apex young plants from 2 to 3 cm, high. 



Observed by the writer only at the one locality. Wright's no. 828 is, in part, the 

 same (Y, N), this having been referred -by Jenman in his description of P. rhizophorum 

 as "near our plant." Eggers's no. 4919, from the vicinity of Jaguey, as represented 

 by a specimen in the National Herbarium, is also identical. 



Explanation of Plate 3.— The type specimens. Scale about ?. 



5. Polystichum dissimulans Maxon, sp. now Plate 4, Figure A. 



Aspidium viviparum Jenman, Bull. Dot. Dept. Jamaica II. 2: 267. 1895, in part, not 

 Polystichum viviparum Fee, 1850-52. 



Rhizome stout, erect, clothed with large, blackish glistening scales without and mostly 

 lanceolate to linear flaccid rufous scales within; stipes stout, rigid, sulcate, stramin- 

 eous, 13 to 26 cm. long, clothed sparingly at the base with large rufous scales and 

 similar linear scales; lamina narrowly lanceolate, deeply bipinnatifid, 25 to 40 cm. 

 long, 8 or 9 cm. broad, exceedingly coriaceous, comprising about 25 to 30 pairs of rigid 

 divergent or somewhat ascending spinescent pinna 1 ; lowermost 3 or 4 pairs of pinnae 

 distant, nearly opposite, the succeeding pairs contiguous, similar in form but slightly 

 narrower and longer, those toward the apex simply serrate, uniformly and gradually 

 reduced in size to a somewhat elongate foliose apex terminating abruptly in a large 

 viviparous bud; rachis stout, clothed with reduced fibrillose tawny deciduous scales; 

 characteristic middle pinnae 5 or 6 cm. long, 13 to 15 mm. broad at the middle, fully 

 pinnate at the base, the superior basal segment largest, erect, free, unequally ovate, 

 spinescent, the inferior basal segment similar but narrower, smaller and very oblique, 

 the pinna otherwise deeply pinnatifid with oblique spinescent segments or some- 

 times only deeply serrate, the serrations sharply spinescent, the apex always acute 

 and aristate; sori numerous, commonly biserial, the rows incomplete. 



Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, no. 427751, collected on a wooded bank near 

 the Green River, on the trail from Cinchona to Blue Mountain Peak, Jamaica, by 

 William R. Maxon, no. 1491, April 22, 1903. Underwood 2560, in the herbarium of 

 the New York Botanical Garden, has identical data. The following additional speci- 

 mens may be cited: 



Jamaica: Chestervale, altitude 900 meters, Underwood 1178. Silver Hill, alti- 

 tude 1,050 meters, Harris 7158. Without locality, Jenman (2 sheets). With- 

 out locality, ex herb. Bot. Dept. Jamaica. Without locality, Hart 176. 



