A CYCADACEOUS PLANT FROM PORT NATAL. 89 



, of Lomaria eriopits. It however appeared to me just such a cone as 

 might, from analogy, be expected to be produced by a plant like that 

 at Chelsea. In order to ascertain whether the specimens of fronds 

 upon which Kunze founded his Lomaria eriopus^ and of which, accord- 

 ing to Gueinzius, the cone above described was the fructification, were 

 the same as the Chelsea plant, I procured through the kindness of Mr. 

 Moore a pinna, and forwarded it to Dr, Beichenbach of Leipzig, with a 

 request that he would compare it with Kunze's specimens of Lomaria 

 e7nopus. In reply he informs me that they are identical, and further 

 that Kunze's specimens have a Cycadeous structure. 



From the above it appears that Mr. Moore is in error in giving the 

 credit of the discovery of this plant to Dr. Stanger, he being only tfie 

 introducer of it to this country, it having been detected many years 

 ago by the Collector Gueinzius, and also by Drege, both of whom 

 transmitted specimens of the fronds to Kunze, who from their appear- 

 ance considered them as a species of Lomaria. The first referred them 

 to Lomaria coriacea of Schrader*; but lie afterwards corrects his pre- 

 vious statementf , and says that his specimens differ fi'om Z. coriacea in 

 several points, especially in the stipes being woolly, and he accordingly 

 designates it as a new species, under the name of Lomaria eriopm (not 

 lagopus^ as quoted by Mr. Moore). It is rather surprising tliat Kunze 

 should have referred his specimens to Lomaria^ as the circumstance of 

 the stipes being woolly is quite sufficient to show that they had nothing 

 to do with that genus. 



Since I ascertained the above particulars, another male, and some 

 fragments of a supposed female cone, have been exhibited at a meeting 

 of the Linnean Society, and also several small plants which, with those 

 brought by Capt. Garden, have afforded me a few more particulars, 

 chiefly as regards its mode of vernation. In Cycadacem the vernation, 

 as hitherto characterized, is straight; in Zamia and its allies the pinna? 

 are flat, and oppositely folded against each other; in Ch/cas the pinnae 

 are circinate. Stangeria differs from the general character of the Order, 

 and also in the secondary character of the genus, in its fronds being 

 inflexed in vernation; the upper portion of the frond, bearing the nascent 

 pinnae, being abruptly bent against the stipes, and on being developed 

 from the axis of growth, the stipes gradually lengthens, and the up])cr 

 inflexed part bearing the young pinnae becomes straight. As in Zamia^ 



* Linn£ca, vol. \, p. 506. t Linnw, vol. xiii. p. 152. 



VOL. VI. 



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