420 



POLYPODIACEAE. 



1. Adiantum bellum T. Moore. 

 BERMUDA MAIDEN-HAIR FERN. (Fig. 

 456.) Rootstock short, creeping. Leaves 

 tufted, 3'-18' high, the slender petiole 

 and rachis black; blades bipinnate, the 

 pinnules on short filiform stalks, obovate- 

 cuneate or flabellate, variously toothed or 

 lobed, very thin, 3"-10" long, the forking 

 veins terminating in the teeth or lobes ; 

 sori 1-3 on fertile pinnules, oblong to 

 nearly circular, sometimes twice as long 

 as wide, the indusium entire ; sterile 

 leaves are much more plenty than those 

 bearing sori. [Adiantum cuneatum of 

 Lefroy, Reade, and Jones; A. bellinn 

 walsinghamense Gilbert; ?A. tenerum of 

 Rugg; A. Capillus-V eneris of Jones.] 



Common on shaded rocks, walls and 

 cliffs nearly throughout the islands, differ- 

 ing greatly in size and somewhat in tex- 

 ture when exposed to different degrees of 

 light. Apparently endemic, although re- 

 corded from Guiana. Its nearest relative 

 appears to be A. cuneatum Langs. & Fisch., 

 a South American species, with which it 

 was formerly supposed to be identical, but 

 T. Moore, in his original description of the 

 species (Gardener's Chronicle, N. S. 11 : 

 172, 1879), compares it with A. fragile 

 of the West Indies. Spores, from which 

 the species originated, were presumably 



brought to Bermuda by winds from a great distance to the south. Thomas Moore, 

 who first observed that this fern is different from all others, was not the same man 

 as the celebrated poet of the same name. 



Adiantum Capillus-Veneris L., VENUS-HAIR FERN, of Europe and North 

 America, was planted out by Lefroy about 1875, among other Adianta "in 

 promising localities about Paynter 's Vale ' ' ; Mr. B. D. Gilbert records that in 

 1898 he found the fern in the Walsingham region, evidently coming across one 

 of the plants set out by Lefroy, or a descendant ; the species has not been 

 seen there by subsequent collectors, but large fronds of A. bellum have errone- 

 ously been taken for it. 



7. ANCHISTEA Presl. 



Large ana rather coarse swamp ferns, with short oblong sori sunk in 

 cavities in the leaf and arranged in chain-like rows close to the midribs. 

 Leaves uniform. Indusia fixed by their outer margins. Veins forming a single 

 line of areolae next the midrib, then free to the margin. [Greek, referring to 

 it? affinity with the genus Woodwardia.] A monotypie genus. 



