1026 JOTTINGS FROM BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY, 



And the following is the description given of the species : — 



" Stems from a creeping slender rootstock ascending or pendu- 

 lous, 6 inches to 1 foot long. Leaves obliquely oblong or narrow 

 lanceolate, usually about ^ inch long, but sometimes nearly 1 inch, 

 truncate obtuse or acute at the end, the lower margin shortly 

 decurrent, the single central nerve often produced at the end into 

 a fine point. Bracts rather shorter than the leaves and occasion- 

 ally replacing them in the upper part of the stem, deeply divided 

 into two segments like the leaves but smaller and more acute. 

 Capsule-like sori about 2 lines broad and 1 line long, much com- 

 pressed, parallel to the petiole." 



Tmesipteris presents a creeping rhizome and a series of leaf, 

 bearing stems. In nearly all the specimens I have seen the 

 rhizome is found deeply buried in the fibrous coating of the stem 

 of the Tree-fern, while the leaf-bearing axes hang downwards; 

 more rarely the plant is found creeping on the surface of the 

 ground ; it branches dichotomously and may attain a length 

 of several feet. None of my specimens have any roots. 

 The branches either end in rounded extremities, or are 

 continued into aerial leaf-bearing stems. The rhizome is 

 cylindrical, finely ridged in a longitudinal direction, and covered 

 with short scattered brown hairs. It contains a central bundle of 

 small scalariform and reticulated vessels with thin- walled elongated 

 cells (and sieve tubes 1) without any definite sheath, though the 

 cells immediately surrounding the bundle take on a special 

 appearance in many parts of the rhizome owing to their contain- 

 ing a dark brown matter. The surrounding tissue consists of 

 thin- walled cells elongated in the direction of the long axis of the 

 rhizome, and containing, except near the gi-owing point, only a 

 small quantity of protoplasm. The epidermis is not strongly 

 thickened ; it bears here and there blunt projections forming the 

 bases of the hairs. 



The leaf-bearing stems or aerial branches are cylindrical at the 

 base, but further up they are marked by the longitudinal ridges 

 continuous with the decurrent leaves. The cells of the epidermis 



