species resembles some of the states of the West Indian WV. 
rufa; but there the pinnules are quite woolly beneath, not 
scaly. Our var. /evis was received from M. Galeotti himself, but 
is only one of the many variations seen in the pinnules sometimes 
on different specimens, sometimes on one and the same: less 
sinuated at the margin, and more free from hairs above. 
Drscr. Caudex, or rhizoma, creeping, thicker than a swan’s 
quill, and densely clothed with imbricating subulate scales. Sii- 
pites clustered, short, two to three inches long, stout, and, 
as well as the moderately stout, straight, rigid rachis, clothed 
with erect chaffy hairs. Fronds from a span to a foot long, 
linear-oblong, pinnated. Pinne alternate, the lower ones sub. 
opposite, shortly petiolate, often nearly an inch long, horizontally 
patent, thick, coriaceous, oblong or ovate or subcordate, rarely 
approaching to hastate, sometimes almost rhomboid, deeply sinu- 
ated and almost pinnatifid, the lobes rounded and obtuse, occa- 
sionally acute, sometimes the pinnules are quite entire or slightly 
sinuated, when it becomes the WV. devis of Galeotti: above clothed 
with nearly white deciduous short wool, which in the older speci- 
mens 1s sometimes entirely wanting: beneath very densely clothed 
with imbricated, glossy, appressed, subulate, membranaceous 
scales, generally white and silvery, as in no. 815 of Mr. C. 
Wright, sometimes rufous, as in no. 814 of the same excellent 
collector. Sori marginal, continuous, at first forming a dark 
narrow line or border among the scales, afterwards appearing 
to be intermixed with the scales over nearly the whole of the 
under side. 
—._. 
Fig. 1. Underside of a fertile pinnule :—magnified. Our right-hand figure 
represents a young plant of the more ordinary form ; our left-hand one a speci- 
men with more entire pinnules, 
