394 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
1. Oleandra hirta Brack. in Wilkes, U. 8S. Expl. Exped. 16: 214. 1854. 
TYPE LocaLity: Organ Mountains, Brazil. 
DisTRIBUTION: Brazil. 
ILLustTRATION: Op. cit. pl. 29. 
Only the type specimen in the U. S. National Herbarium has been examined. 
This is well protrayed in the published plate. From its two near American relatives 
with spreading linear rhizome scales O. hirta may at once be distinguished by its 
hirsute surfaces and narrower, decurrent lamin. 
2. Oleandra bradei Christ, Bull. Soc. Bot. Genéve IT. 1: 231. 1909. 
Type LocaLity: La Palma, Costa Rica, altitude 1,300 meters (C. Brade), 
DistRIBUTION: Known only from Costa Rica. 
Oleandra bradei is very much smaller than the next species and is well marked by 
its whitish rhizomes and fewer, more laxly spreading scales. 
SPECIMENS EXAMINED: 
Costa Rica: Vicinity of La Palma, alt. 1,450 to 1,550 meters, on tree trunk at 
edge of forest, Mazon 389, 404. 
3. Oleandra articulata (Swartz) Presl, Tent. Pter. 78. 1836, as to name only. 
Aspidium articulatum Swartz, Journ. Bot. Schrad. 1800?: 30. 1801. 
Polypodium articulatum Poir. in Lam. Encycl. 5: 514. 1804, in part. 
Aspidium nodosum Willd. Sp. Pl. 5: 211. 1810. 
Oleandra nodosa Pres], Tent. Pter. 78. 1836. 
TYPE LocaLitTy: Martinique (Plumier). 
Distrisution: General in the West Indies; on the continent extending from 
Guatemala to Panama, Guiana, and Brazil (Sao Paulo). 
ILLUSTRATION: Plum. Trait. Foug. pl. 136; Schkuhr, Krypt. Gewichs. 1: pl. 27.1804. 
The original description of Aspidium articulatum in Schrader’s Journal reads as 
follows: 
A, articulatum, frondibus ellipticis glaberrimis, punctis fructif. catenulatis sparsis, 
stipitibus articulatis e stolone repente.* 
lum. fil. t. 136. 
Plumier’s illustration, which represents a Martinique specimen, is thus (so far as 
the published record goes) the sole basis of Swartz’s description of this common tropical 
American species. Poiret, however, in 1804 extended the limits of A. articulatum 
by including specimens from Mauritius, in which he was followed also by Swartz.) 
Willdenow, in 1810, perceiving the species to have become an aggregate, divided it 
into two; but unfortunately he retained the name articulatum for the Mauritius 
element and gave the new name nodosum to the Martinique plant of Plumier, which 
really should have been and must now be regarded as the type of articulatum. 
There being, however, the possibility that Swartz had drawn his original diagnosis 
at least in part from a Mauritius plant (notwithstanding his citation of the Plumier 
figure), the writer asked Dr. Carl Lindman, of Stockholm, kindly to determine from 
the Swartzian herbarium: (1) Whether there is any indication that Swartz had a 
Mauritius plant at hand in 1801] and (2) whether his description was meant to include 
any besides the West Indian specimen of Plumier’s figure. In reply both Doctor 
Lindman and his assistant, Dr. Erik L, Ekman, have expressed their entire agreement 
with the writer that the species was founded wholly upon Plumier’s plate 136. Doctor 
Ekman states that “Swartz most probably had no West Indian specimen of Asp. 
articulatum at hand when he made his description, as there is none in his herbarium. 
However, he has, at a later occasion, identified with his Asp. articulatum of 1801 an 
Old World Oleandra, having short stipes, narrower lamina, somewhat broader squame, 
etc.,”? this specimen being marked Aspidium articulatum, perhaps by Swartz’s hand. 
1 Syn. Fil. 42, 236. 1806. 
