Acrostichum lomarioides Jenman'^ 



By George E. Davenport 



Attention having been called to this new species through Mr. 

 Gilbert's recent revision of the Bermuda Ferns in the Bulletin of 



± 



the Torrcy Botanical Club for December, 1898, and Jenman hav- 

 ing credited it to Florida, I venture to offer some comments 



upon it. 



A, lomarioides is described in the Synoptical List of Jamaica 



Perns, being published by G, S. Jenman in the Bulletin of the 

 Botanical Department of Jamaica, and is said by him to have long 

 been confused with A. aiircnui L., from which species he now sep- 



.arates it as distinct. 



The basis for this separation rests primarily upon the follow- 

 insf differences as described by Jenman himself — the greater size. 



of the new fern, a greater difference in the relative size of the fertile 

 and sterile fronds ; the uniformly separate barren and fertile fronds 

 — all the pinnae of the one being barren, and all of the other fer- 

 tile ; the much more sessile leaflets (turned transversely with the 

 rachis, the plane to the sky like the blades of a step ladder) ; the 

 intestiniform translucent, pale colored corpuscles covering the spo- 

 rangia, which give a pale pruinose color to the soriferous under 

 -Surfaces, and, according to Gilbert, a difference in the meshes of 

 the venation, and the direction of the areoles. 



None of these characters, however, seem to me to have spe- 

 ofic value, and the greater number of them are more or less un- 

 important, as they constitute only such varying characters of a 

 secondary nature as are found in a great many other ferns. 



The force of Jenman's statement that the new fern is greater in 

 size than the old one is neutralized by his own descriptions, which 

 give the fronds of A. anrcunt as being ** 2 to 4 ft. tall, l to 

 ft. wide'*; and those of A, lomarioides as being only "2 to 4 ft. 

 tall, but i^ to 2 ft. wide/' a difference in the breadth only, surely 

 a character of no consequence whatever. 



'**'Read before the New England Botanical Club, March 3, 1899. 



(318) 



