: 



227 



A puzzling form, more compound than usual, running away 



from the type and, except in the deltoid sterile fronds, suggest- 



j mg a mixture of the coarser forms of A. Montaimm and A. 



I Bradleyi, 



> 



No. 828. — Cheilanthes lendigera, Swartz. Shaded ledges and 

 cool cliffs, Mapula Mts., October, 1886. 



No. 827. — Cheilanthes Mexicana, n. sp. 



Root-stock rhizoniataceous, slender, wide-creeping, clothed 

 with pale brown linear-lanceolate scales, and bearing loosely- 



scattered fronds, 3 to 7 in. or more tall; stipites i^ to 1% or 4 



m. long, terete, dark or chestnut brown, slightly scaly at the base 

 only, deciduously chaffy above; laminae i^ to 3^ or 4 in. long, 

 I to ji^ in. broad, tri-pinnate or through the basal pinnules of 

 the lower pinnae, quadripinnate ; segments reniform with slightly 

 crenate re-curved herbaceous margins, ultimate segments largest; 

 both surfaces, as well as rachises, covered with coarse tomentum, 

 whitish when young, becoming tawny or yellowish brown, and 

 disappearing altogether from old and weather-beaten fronds. 



Collected by C. G. Pringle on the verge of a high cliff near 

 the summit of Povtrero Peak (Santa Eulalia Mts.), October, 1886. 

 ^It. 7,300 ft. 



This fern, notwithstanding its loveliness, is an unwelcome in- 

 truder, since it only adds one more to a series already sufficiently 

 puzzling. I vvas for a long time in doubt whether it was really 

 distinct from the California plant C. Jibrillosa, The primary dis- 

 tinction upon which I have relied in keeping them apart is the 

 structure of the root-stock, and the secondary, the absence from 

 the Mexican plant of the peculiar fibres which give to the Cali- 

 fornia one its specific name. 



The two ferns resemble each other very much, and both re- 

 semble C lanuginosa in the general appearance of their fronds, so 

 that the difficulty of properly placing detached fronds of either, at 

 times, will be readily understood. 



For this reason, I have delayed publication as long as I could 

 ^o so, with justice to Mr. Pringle, hoping that I would be able 

 to accompany my notes with a series oi figures, showing all the 

 niinor points of difference between these three ferns, and also of 



