MAXON—STUDIES OF TROPICAL AMERICAN FERNS. 601 
NOTES ON NOTHOLAENA. 
The following notes relate to several species of Notholaena which 
have been generally misunderstood or misidentified in recent years. 
There are included, incidentally, descriptions of two new species. 
Notholaena cretacea Liebm. Dansk. Vid. Selsk. Skrivt. V. 1: 216. 1849. 
It has been customary to regard Notholaena cretacea as a species of relatively 
wide distribution, extending from Puebla, the type locality, northwestward to 
Arizona, California, and Lower California. Its characters have not as a rule 
been sharply drawn, having been regarded conveniently as those of a poly- 
morphic species, or else it has been redescribed on the basis of the well known 
plant of southern California, which was described long ago by Eaton as a dis- 
tinct species, Notholaena californica, but subsequently reduced to N. cretacea. 
In reality Eaton’s species is well founded, and it is equally clear that a third 
species, intermediate in range, must be recognized, This has been variously 
determined as Notholaena cretacea, N. californica, N. candida, and N. schaffneri. 
No published name being available it is here described as a new species, 
Notholaena neglecta, and comparative notes upon the several species men- 
tioned are given. 
Notholaena cretacea was founded upon specimens collected from clefts of 
limestone cliffs in the vicinity of Tehuacéin, State of Puebla, altitude about 
5,400 ft. by Liebmann, no other localities being mentioned. The description, 
like most of Liebmann’s, is excellent, and, so far as it goes, applies perfectly 
to a plant of the type collection received from Copenhagen through the courtesy 
of Mr, Carl Christensen, This in turn agrees with a more completely fertile 
specimen collected at the same locality in 1906 by Dr. J. N. Rose (no. 11884). A 
better development of the species is seen, however, in two Puebla specimens 
collected by Purpus (3145, 4028), these being larger and more robust and hav- 
ing the lamin slightly more divided. 
These four numbers taken together show WN. cretacea to differ constantly 
from the plant of northern Mexico and southern Arizona, N. neglecta, in 
several important characters. The rhizome scales are larger (3.5 to 4.5 mm. 
long) and much darker in the broad median area, and have the narrow 
translucent margins minutely denticulate, the teeth tipped with short, capitate, 
glandular prominences; the lamina is relatively broader, not at all elongate 
toward the apex, less compound, and more freely pulverulent above; the 
pinne are fewer and pinnatifid to the extreme tip, thus lacking the conform 
or elongate, entire terminal segment which is characteristic of N. neglecta; 
and the segments are relatively flat and close, the sporangia from the closely 
revolute margin never concealing the dense, pale yellowish, ceraceous covering 
of the lower surface. The points of distinction from N. californica are stated 
under that species. 
The specimens of NV. cretacea above mentioned are: 
PUEBLA: Vicinity of Tehuacin, alt. about 1,620 meters, Liebmann (type 
collection). Same locality, Rose 11384. Vicinity of San Luis Tultitla- 
napa, June, 1908, Purpus 3145. Tlacuiloltepec, alt. 1,800 to 2,100 
meters, July, 1909, Purpus 4028. 
The two Purpus numbers were distributed as N. candida (Mart. & Gal.) 
Hook., from which species they differ widely in their narrow and incon- 
spicuously bicolorous scales, as also in the size, outline, and dissection of the 
lamina, 
