MAXON—STUDIES OF TROPICAL AMERICAN FERNS, 401 
Montserrat: Top of Chaners Mountains, alt. 900 meters, Shafer 292. Fergus 
Mountain, alt. 600 meters, Shafer 793. 
GUADELOUPE: Duss 4099. 
MARTINIQUE: Duss 1609. 
TrinmpaD: Fendler 81; Lockhart. 
Mexico: Mirador, Liebmann. Zacuapan, Vera Cruz, on trees, Purpus 3021. 
GUATEMALA: Coban, Alta Verapaz, alt. 1,350 meters, epiphytic, von Tiirckheim 
II. 1261. Near Finca Sepacuité, Alta Verapaz, Cook & Griggs 421, 535. 
Trail from Senaht to Actal4, Alta Verapaz, on tree trunk in forest, Maxon & 
Hay 3319, 3330. 
Nicaracua: Greytown, Wright. 
Costa Rica: San José, Pittier 1928d. La Palma, alt. 1,400 meters, C. Brade 71. 
Near Coliblanco, alt. 1,950 meters, on tree trunk, Mazon 282. La Palma, 
alt. 1,450 to 1,550 meters, Maxon 405. 
Panama: Bismark, Williams 458. 
Co.LomsBta: Farallones de Cali, Cauca, alt. 2,000 meters, Lehmann 1982. Without 
locality, Lehmann 4933. 
VENEZUELA: Juan Griego trail, Island of Margarita, alt. 450 meters, Johnston 144. 
British Guiana: ‘‘Our House,’’ Mount Roraima, alt. about 1,725 meters, 
im Thurn 133. 
Brazi: Serra do Itatiaia, Dusen. Minas Geraes, Lindman A181. Santa Cath- 
arina, Schmalz (Rosenstock, no. 145). Corcovado, R. Rathbun. Rio de 
Janeiro, Mosén 2639. Santos, Mosén 3731. 
Mauritius: Without definite locality, Mrs. Nicholas Pike. 
Sierra LEONE: Without definite locality, Barton. 
2. Polypodium myosuroides Swartz, Prodr. Veg. Ind. Occ. 131. 1788. Puate 11. 
7rammitis myosuroides Swartz, Journ. Bot. Schrad. 18007: 18. 1801, not Schkuhr, 
1804. 
Xiphopteris myosuroides Kaulf. Enum. Fil. 85, 275. 1824. 
Polypodium jamesoni Jenman, Bull. Bot. Dept. Jamaica IT, 4: 112. 1897, not Xtphop- 
teris jamesoni Hook. 1860, nor Polypodium jamesoni Mett. 1883. 
TYPE LOCALITY: Jamaica. 
DistRIBsuTION: Higher peaks of the Blue Mountains, Jamaica, at 1,700 to 2,220 
meters; of doubtful occurrence upon the continent. 
Polypodium myosuroides was described originally by Swartz (in 1788) in the follow- 
ing words: 
Frondibus pinnatifidis glabris, lobis in apicem lanceolatum coadunatis fructiferis; 
inferioribus remotis. 
Although this description is both incomplete and inaccurate, the species name 
myosuroides is itself so peculiarly descriptive as to indicate clearly to which one of 
two closely allied species it was originally meant to apply. The introduction of a 
second species into the concept of P. myosuroides, and its later substitution for the 
species which should really bear that name, came about chiefly through Schkuhr’s 
figuring (as Grammitis myosuroides) in 1804' a Jamaican plant, probably received 
from Swartz, that was not myosuroides but a distinct species (Polypodium delitescens 
Maxon, 1905). Whatever may have been the source of Schkuhr’s specimen, Swartz 
evidently failed to recognize the two forms as specifically different. At any rate, in 
the Synopsis Filicum (1806) he cited Schkuhr’s illustration without question under 
myosuroides and modified his original diagnosis materially, while in his Flora,? pub- 
lished in the same year, a long description is so worded as to include both forms. 
Both species being rare and not often collected and Swartz himself having cited 
Schkuhr’s plate as illustrating myosuroides, most later writers have not unnaturally 
' Krypt. Gewiichs. 1: pl. 7. 1804. 2 Fl. Ind. Occ. 3: 1644, 1806. 
