MR. MOORE OTf SOME SUPRASOKIFEBOUS FEBNS. 129 



JSTote on some Suprasoriferous Ferns. 

 By Thomas Mooee, Esq., F.L.S. 



[Read May 5th, 1857.] 



The normal condition of the majority of the Ferns, as is well known, 

 is to produce what ia called their fructification, on the under sur- 

 face or the back of their fronds, and hence they are called dorsi- 

 ferous. There are, however, some remarkable deviations from this 

 rule among the Ferns which belong to the dorsiferous class. 



Some time since, in the " Nature- Printed Ferns of Great Britain 

 and Ireland,'' I had occasion to mention the fact, that certain 

 varieties of the common Hart's-tongue Fern {Scolopendrium vul- 

 ffare), habitually produce sori on the upper as well as the under 

 surface of their fronds. This occurs, for the most part, on those 

 varieties, several in number, in which the margin is crenately 

 lobed. In these cases, it often appears as if the normally-placed 

 sori had been continued so as to reach the margin at the acute 

 sinuses of the lobes, and then returned on the opposite surface ; 

 but it also frequently happens that the abnormally-placed sori are 

 distinctly within the margin, and borne where there arc no cor- 

 responding sori beneath. 



Subsequently another example of this kind has been recorded 

 by Sir W. Hooker*; — an aspidioid suprasoriferous Polypodium 

 found in Ceylon. I have now to mention a still more remark- 

 able instance, occurring in a totally different group of ferns, in 

 which the fructification is normally marginal. 



Some time ago I was favoured by my friend Mr. C. Moore, the 

 Director of the Botanic Garden at Sydney, with some fronds, cul- 

 tivated in the Sydney garden, of one of the Ferns he had obtained 

 from New Caledonia. This fern, named after him Deparia Moorii 

 by Sir "VY. Hooker t, I have already, under the name of CionidiumX, 

 brought under the notice of the Society as forming a Deparioid 

 genus, with reticulated veins. Deparia normally bears its spore- 

 cases within little cup-like involucres, standing out from the ex- 

 treme margin of the fronds on little footstalks, and the same kind 

 of structure occurs in Cionidium. In the specimens of Oionidium 

 Mooriij above referred to, these normally-placed marginal exserted 

 sori were abundant ; but in addition to them were other perfect 

 sori scattered here and there, both on the upper and under sur- 

 face, entirely removed from the margin, sometimes even almost 



* Kew Journal of Botany, viii. 360, t. 11. t I^id. iy. 55, t. 3. 



X Proceedings of the Linnean Society, ii. 212. 

 LINN. PROC. — BOTANY. K 



