prepared was purchased for the Kew collection in 1914 
from the Yokohama Nursery Company. The species has 
proved quite hardy at Kew and is perennial. While its 
interest is mainly botanical, for the flowers do not invest 
it with any ornamental or decorative quality, the foliage 
is pleasing and renders it quite worthy of a place in the 
Rock Garden, if only on account of the resemblance, 
which the generic name suggests, that the leaves bear to 
the fronds of a fern. When plants are grown in a frame 
the rosette persists during the winter months, but when 
grown in the open the leaves disappear. Grown out of 
doors the plant prefers shade during the summer months 
and should be given a moist soil. This, it may be noted, 
is the first. occasion on which the fruit and the seeds of 
the plant have been described. 
Description.— Herb, perennial, stemless; rootstock premorse; buds enveloped 
by rounded herbaceous-scarious fimbriate scales,}-1 in. long. Leaves petioled, 
oblanceolate in outline, unevenly pectinately pinnatisect, 2}-6 in. long, {1 
in. wide; segments spreading at almost a right angle, rapidly decreasing in 
size from the upper third towards the base when they become reduced to setose 
scales, straight or slightly falcate, linear, rounded, slightly emarginate and 
minutely mucronate at the apex, below the apex sparingly crenulate, auriculate 
at the base on the upper edge, the auricle entire or sparingly toothed, the teeth 
passing into setae, }-1 in. wide, thin, with scattered setae below, elsewhere 
glabrous. Inflorescence racemose, borne on a naked scape rather longer than 
the leaves, the raceme itself slightly cymosely branched or simple towards the 
top ; pedicels filiform, when mature about 2 in. long; bracts rounded, setosely 
toothed or glandular-denticulate, often small or very small; bracteoles near the 
base of the pedicel like the bracts, but still smaller. Sepals 2, rounded, 
caducous, 73-1; in. long. Petals 4, equal, elliptic-oblong, white, thin, soon 
falling, about 3} in. long. Anthers zz in. long. Ovary obovoid-orbicular, 
glabrous; style about 2 in. long; stigma 2-lobed; ovules 2-4, anatropous, 
ascending from the base of the ovary. Fruit siliculoid, opening by 2 valves. 
Seed oblong-ovoid, usually perfect ; testa smooth ; embryo minute. 
Tas. 8743.—Fig. 1, portion of a leaf ; 2, diagram of the flower; 8, young 
flower, with bract; 4, flower, fully open; 5, stamen; 6, pistil; 7, ovary in 
vertical section ; 8, fruiting pedicel and fruit; 9, ripe fruit; 10, the same, in 
vertical section; 11, seed, in vertical section :—ail enlarged except 8, which 
is of natural size. 
