VAN ESELTINE—SELAGINELLA RUPESTRIS ALLIES. 169 
The following specimens have been examined; 
Frorma: Scrub between Narcoosie and Runnymede, Osceola County, 
Harper 10 (N, M). Dry pine barrens it base of Tabletop Hill, north- 
west of West Apopka, Lake County, Harper 16 (N, G, M). Scrub 
about 3 miles east of Tavares, Lake County, Harper 17 (N, M), Palma 
Sola, Tracy 7554 ON, M, G). 
Corcta: Saud hills of Ohvoopee River near Reidsville, Tatnail County, 
Harper 1852 (N, G, M). Dry pine barrens east of Arabi, Dooly 
County, on rocks, Harper 1957 (N, G, M). Sand hills of the Little 
Ocmulgee River, Montgomery County, Harper 1987 (N, G, M). Near 
Harrison, on Altamaha grit, Harper (N, Y). 
NortH CaroLtina: East of Wilmington, in dry sand, Bartram (G), 
Chase (N). 
DisTRIBUTION: Central Florida to North Carolina, along the Coastal Plain. 
Williamson in a letter to Underwood—the letter now attached to the type 
sheet in the herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden—states that this 
species “grew in the white sand of the open sand barrens in circular clumps 
2 foot or more in diameter, that were generally almost covered by the drifting 
sand.” The specimen of Harper's no. 1987 (with photograph) in the Gray 
Herbarium shows the habit very well. 
This species differs noticeably from S. humifusa, to which it is closely re- 
lated, in its dwarfish aspect, as well as in its much more rugose spores, and its 
more minute dorsal cilia, those of S. acanthonota being extremely fine, while 
those of S. humifusa are quite as large and prominent as are the marginal 
ones. The dwarf habit and more strongly rugose spores also serve to distin- 
guish it from S. funiformis. It is typically more lax than S. funtformis, but 
there is a very considerable variation in that respect. Selaginella acanthonota 
seems to be the most variable species in the group, exclusive, perhaps, of 
S. rupestris. 
Underwood in his notes on S. acanthonota says that it is related to S. 
rupestris. The lack of definite reticulation on the megaspores, as well as the 
more stiffly ascending or semierect habit and the shorter leaves with dorsal 
cilia, shows it to be much more closely related to S. humifusa and the other 
southern species. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATB 20.—Type specimen of Selaginella acanthonota, Natural size. 
6. Selaginella tortipila A Br. Ann. Sci, Nat. V. 3: 2. 1865, 
PLATE 21. Figure 68. 
Selaginella rupestris tortipila Underw, Native Ferns ed. +. 140. 1893. 
Plants prostrate, loosely fasciculate, 20 to 25 em. long, producing rhizophores 
at the base of the shoots, rarely elsewhere; stems (including leaves) up to 
1.25 mm. thick, flexuous, loosely repeatedly branched at intervals of T to 25 
mm.; larger branches similar to the primary shoots; ultimate branchlets up 
to 20 mm. long, slightly thicker than the shoots; leaves 8-ranked, imbricate, 
closely appressed on the shoots and branches, more Jax on the ultimate 
branchlets, in the younger stages pale glaucous green, in age becoming ochra- 
ceous to ¢cinereous brown, chartaceous, thickish, slightly concave above, 
strongly convex beneath, narrowly sulcate dorsally nearly to the thick blunt 
upex, lanceolate from a long decurrent base, wninutely 8 to 8-ciliate on the 
margins, abruptly setigerous at the apex; longest leaves 2 mm. long, 0.6 mm. 
wide at the base; cilia up to 0.045 mm, long, hyaline, deciduous; sets fibri- 
form, minutely spinulose. extremely tortuous, ochraceous to byaline, up to 0.7 
mim. long. 
48212°—18 2 
