42 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
clasping the rachis, the others falcate or subfalcate, 3 to 6 cm. long, 12 to 16 mm. broad 
at the sinuses, slightly narrower above, the margins lightly revolute, obliquely crenate 
to deeply crenate-serrate (in very large specimens), crenate-serrulate at the acuminate 
to long-acuminate apex; costules elevated, bearing numerous small white bullate 
scales in the lower part below, otherwise glabrous; veins 15 to 20 pairs below the apex, 
minutely setulose, subpinnately forked (with about 2 to 4 pairs of branches) or 2 to 
5-forked, the branches oblique, arcuate, soriferous toward their extremities; lower- 
most branches of basal veins of adjacent segments usually joined by a transverse 
veinlet, forming a narrowly elongate costal areole; basal branches of veins in the basal 
third of the segment also infrequently joined similarly, forming relatively broad costu- 
lar areoles; sori rather small, biseriate and slightly supramedial, or in larger segments 
forming a continuous regular and deeply crenate line about 1 to 2 mm. distant from 
the margin; indusium bright brown, simple or 2 or 3-lobed, the margins uneven to 
lacerate; receptacle capitate to subcylindric, setose; leaf tissue firmly herbaceous, 
lustrous, often discolored in drying, dark above, much lighter below. 
Type LocaLiry: Martinique (herb, Willd. 20167). 
DistriBuTION: Apparently confined to the Lesser Antilles—Dominica, Martinique, 
Guadeloupe, Montserrat, and St. Kitts—at 300 to 1,200 meters elevation. 
Intusrrations: Hook. Icon. Pl. pl. 669 (as Hemitelia imrayana), Fée, loc. cit. pl. 26 
(as Hemistegia insignis). 
The following specimens are in the U. 8. National Herbarium: 
MARTINIQUE: Duss ! 1605 (as H. horrida); Duss 4435 (as Hemitelia sp.); Duss 4605 
(as H. grandifolia). 
GUADELOUPE: Duss 4154 (as H. grandifolia); Duss 4155 (as H. horrida); Duss 4449 
(as H. insignis); Duss 4451, 4452 (as Hemitelia sp.). 
Dominica: In forests, Laudat, Eggers 867; Laudat, Lloyd 263. 
Sr. Krrrs: Forested slopes of Mount Misery, Britton & Cowell 510. 
MonTserRRAT: Chauers Mountain, altitude 600 meters, Shafer 283. Without 
locality, Turner. 
The taxonomic history of this species, which is rather complicated, is briefly as— 
follows: 
(1) Grandifolia. The species was first described as Cyathea grandifolia by Willdenow 
who cited Plumier’s plate 20 and Petiver’s plate 2, figure 10, and gave as the sole 
locality Martinique. If we are to interpret the species wholly upon the basis of the 
illustrations cited the name will apply to no other species than that described later by 
Kunze as H. kohautiana, the type of which (Sieber’s 375, from Martinique) will be 
seen (PI. 26) to agree closely with Plumier’s plate 20, the latter also representing a 
Martinique plant. But there is in this instance a Willdenovian type specimen (herb. 
Willd., no. 20167) of the species grandifolia; and this, by a careful reading of the original 
description and especially of the part describing the acuminate segments, will be 
seen to have served for the really diagnostic features of the description. It seems 
far preferable, therefore, to give greater weight to the specimen than to the figures 
cited; and this even though a later writer, Pres], has confused the matter by stating ? 
(by implication) that Willdenow’s type was from Caracas, collected by Bredemeyer. 
The Willdenow specimen (no. 20167) shows no such data,? and there is far better 
reason to credit Willdenow’s statement than Presl’s. The other locality cited by 
Pres] for his Microstegnus grandifolius is Mount Misery, St. Kitts, the specimen col- 
lected by Breutel. This the writer has not seen; but specimens collected on this 
1 The Duss numbers frequently embrace more than one species. The numbers here 
listed apply only to specimens in the National Herbarium. 
? Loc. cit., 354, in describing Microstegnus grandifolius. 
* Professor Urban writes that it has merely the following locality data: ‘‘Habitat 
in America calidiore.”’ 
