490 CONTRlBUTrOTs^S FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 



uo moans to be confused with any form of D, ietragona, which is of the section 

 Goniopterls. F(5e's detail figure ahuost certainly represents one of the lower- 

 most pituue, probably the lowest or next to the lowest; at least in the specimen 

 at hand only the two or three lowermost pairs of pinnae are contracted at the 

 base, as shown in the figure. See under D. johnstoni, page 408, and under />, 

 latiuscula, page 408. 

 Dryopteris radicans (L.) Maxon. 



AsplcHhim radicans L. Syst Nat. cd. 10. 2: 1323. 17o0. 



Asplcnium rhi^^ophjjllum L, Sp. PL ed. 2. 1540. 17G3. Not Aspleniiim rhizo- 

 phyJlum L. Sp. IM. ed. 1. lOTS. 1753 ; Sp. TK ed. 2. 153G. 1703. 



Aspleniam rhizophorum L. Gen. Fil, ed, G. (emendation, at end). 17G4. 



PoIypoiUian rcpvns Sw. Trod. 132. 1788. Not Sw. Trod. 130. 1788, which Is 

 CampyJonenrum rcpem. 



Polypodium repfans Gmelin, Syst. Nat. 2": 1300. 1701. 



Gonioptcris rcptans Prosl, Tent. Pterid. 1S2. 1S3G. 



Phcgoptcris rcptans D. C. Eaton, Bull. Torr. Club 10: 101. 1883. 



Nephrodlani rcptans Diels in EugL & Prantl, Nat. Pfl. 1': 108. 1899. 



Dryoptcris rcptans C. Chr. Ind, Fil. 288. lfX)5. 



The Asplcnium radicans of Liiniseus (1750) was founded directly upon 

 Sloane's i^)late 29 and plate 30, figure 1, representing Jamaican plants, and upon 

 IMukonet's plate 253, figure 4. 



The Asplcnium rhizophyUurn published in the second edition of the Species 

 Plantarum (page 1540) was founded on the identical plates cited under 

 Asplcnium radicans, with the addition of a reference to Browne's ''Asplcnium 

 simplex minus rc/Itctcns, etc.,'* this in turn having been establislied partly (or 

 perhaps wholly) on the Sloane and Plukenet figures cited under radicans and 

 rhizophyllum. 



Asplcnium rhizophonnn L., 17G4, is raeroly a change of name for rhizophyllum 

 of the second edition, page 1540; not rliizophyUmn of the first edition, page 

 1078, and of the second edition, puge 1530, which is Camptosorus rhizophyUus\ 



The three names are thus identical in application, having to do with the 

 same plates; and the earliest is radicans, 1759. 



The i)lates cited represent a species of Dryoptcris, — a common and well 

 known tropical American fern usually called Dryoptcris (or Ncphrodium) 

 rcptans. The figures are unmistakable, Sloane's plate 29 in particular repre- 

 senting a characteristic form of the typical Jamaican plant, Sloaue's descrip- 

 tion is not less distinctive. 



Notwithstanding this, later writers have apparently without exception sub- 

 stituted under one or another of the Linn^ean names (usually rliizopliornm) 

 a plant of nnother genus, namely a true Asplenium with glossy stitf purplish 

 brown stipes and rachis, a plant like the original only in its wide range of 

 variation and hi having a radicant tip. Swartz, In his Observatioues Bo- 

 tanicae,*^ seems to have been responsible for formally introducing or at least 

 sanctioning this substitution, by noting (under A. rhizophorum) that Sloane's 

 plate 30, figure 1, should be referred to his own Pohjpodium rcpens which had 

 been published in 1788, founded on this same plate 30, figure 1, and Plukenet's 

 plate 253, figure 4. ''Asplcnium rhizophorum " was held by him to be bipin- 

 nate, in mature plants, a character here introduced for the first time. Because 

 of his P. rcpens of page 130 (1788) (this is Camplyoncurum rcpens) the /*. 

 rcpens of page 132 becomes P. rcptans in the Synopsis Filicum (ISOC), a 

 name given first by Gmelin (1791) who cited Sloane's plate 30, figure 1; and 



" Page 399, 1701.' 



