54 NORTH AMERICAN FLORA [VorumE 16 
Primary internodes less than 2 cm. long. 9. D. farinosa. 
Primary internodes 3 cm. or more long. 
Segments wholly glabrous. 10. D. bicolor. 
Segments, or at least the costae, not glabrous below. 
Pinnae less than 3.5 cm. broad. 
Smaéal plants with ascending branches; pinnae not more 
than 13 cm. long. ll. D. stricvissima. 
Larger plants with divaricate branches; pinnae longer. 
Leaf-tissue rigidly coriaceous. 12, D. costaricensis. 
Leaf-tissue herbaceous. 
Veins fibrillose-chaffy ; leaf-tissue glabrous. 13. D. Underwoodiana. 
Veins and leaf-tissue minutely glandular-puber- 
ulous. 14, D. jamaicensis. 
Pinnae 3.5 em. or more broad. 
Segments closely tomentose below, rarely glabrate with 
age. 15. D. bifida. 
Segments not tomentose below. 
Veins 40-50 pairs to each segment; costae densely 
chaffy. 16. D. furcaia. 
Veins 20-35 pairs; costae lightly pubescent with stel- 
late hairs. 
Scales of the rachis and internodes mostly ferru- 
ginous, laxly long-ciliate. 17, D. palmata. 
Scales of like parts mostly dark reddish-brown, 
rigidly spinescent-ciliate. 18. D. mellifera. 
1. Dicranopteris Bancroftii (Hook.) Underw. Bull. Torrey 
Club 34: 252. 1907. 
Gleichenia Bancroftii Hook. Sp. Fil. 1: 5. 1844. 
Mertensia Bancroftit Kunze, Linnaea 18: 307. 1844, 
Gleichenia Brunei Christ, Bull. Herb. Boiss. II. 5: 13. 1905. 
Dicranopterts Brunet Underw. Bull. Torrey Club 34: 253. 1907. 
Rhizome creeping, epigeous or somewhat subterranean, flexuous, up to 6 mm. in diam- 
eter, muricate, sparingly covered with brownish to light-castaneous lanceolate long-acu- 
minate scales up to 7 mm. long, glabrescent; primary leaf-axis stout, about 5 mm. in 
diameter, stramineous, naked, or at the base brownish and somewhat scaly, bearing a pair 
of large bipinnate pinnae, axial growth sometimes continued from the included bud, a 
second and third pair of primary pinnae thus produced in acropetal succession ; terminal 
(axial) bud large, up to 2 cm. long, densely clothed with whitish to dull-yellowish ovate 
to deltoid-lanceolate entire long-acuminate scales; pinnae determinate, oblong, 1-1.5 m. 
long, 30-50 cm. broad, acuminate, the rachis stout, smooth, up to 4 mm. in diameter, deli- 
cately bicarinate above ; pinnules very numerous, normally inserted 2-3 cm. apart, approxi- 
mate or slightly imbricate (rarely much smaller, congested, 1-1.5 cm. apart, closely over- 
lapping), divergent, sessile, linear, 15-25 cm. long, 34.5 cm. broad, cut to the costa; 
costa stramineous, with a few deciduous slender deeply laciniate or filiform yellowish 
scales; segments rigidly herbaceous, very brittle, numerous, linear-ligulate, 1.5~2.25 cm. 
long, about 2.5 mm. broad, mostly adnate and decurrent (or the lowermost unequally con- 
stricted, subsessile), green or yellowish-green, glabrous or nearly so, glaucous below, the 
costule conspicuously elevated, stramineous, glabrescent ; veins apart, once-forked near the 
base, the branches widely divergent; sori inframedial, seated upon the anterior branch, 
3-5-sporangiate, a tuft of small filiform yellowish scales beneath. 
TYPE LOCALITY : Jamaica. 
DISTRIBUTION: Jatnaica, Guadeloupe, and Martinique; on the continent extending from 
Mexico to Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia, mainly at altitudes of from 1000 to 1800 
meters. 
ILLUSTRATIONS: Hook. loc. cit. pl. 44; Bull. Herb. Boiss. II. 5: 287. f. 1? (as G. Brunet). 
Dicranopteris flexuosa (Schrad.) Underw. Bull. Torrey 
Club 34: 254. 1907. 
Mertensia flexuosa Schrad. Goett. Gel. Anz. 1824: 863. 1824. 
Mertensia rigida Kunze, Linnaea9: 16. 1834. 
Gleichenia flexuosa Mett. Ann, Lugd. Bat. 1: 50. 1863. 
Gleichenia'‘rigida Bommer & Christ, Bull. Soc. Bot. Belg. 351: 174. 1896. Not G. rigida J. Smith, 
1841. 
A diffuse semi-erect plant with rigid branches; rhizome creeping, 2-5 mm. in diameter, 
light- to dark-brownish, slightly muricate from the detachment of very numerous decidu- 
