Broadhurst: Struthiopteris in North America 307 



Blechnum capense Diels (in part?) in E. & P. Nat. Pfl. i 4 : 

 249. 1899. 



Blechnum lineatum C. Chr. Ind. Fil. 156. 1905. 



Plants terrestrial. Rhizome erect, 10 cm. high (see discussion 

 following this description), 3-5 cm. thick, the scales 1-2 cm. long, 

 2-6 mm. wide, burnt umber to tobacco brown. Sterile fronds 

 40-155 cm. long; stipes clustered, 18-90 cm. long, angulate, 

 shining or dull, light-colored, or less often bicolored (with brown) 

 or more rarely blotched with brown (purplish brown in some 

 Cuban specimens), the scales numerous, brownish yellow, mixed 

 with more or less fibrillose ones, very loosely appressed, at least 

 toward the rhizome, more numerous than in S. striata, the attach- 

 ment of the larger ones indicated by dark points or raised dots; 

 lamina 28-74 cm. long, 8.5-36 cm. wide, oblong to narrowly 

 lanceolate, slightly or not reduced at the base (type A, without 

 vestigial pinnae), gradually reduced at the apex, the pinnae close 

 to overlapping in the smaller plants; pinnae 18-40-jugate (usually 

 20-40), linear-oblong, falcate, the apex acuminate, serrate, the 

 base cordate, often partly covering the rachis, often free through- 

 out, the lowest pinnae petioled, 6.5-20 cm. long,* 0.9-2 cm. wide; 

 margins subentire, somewhat cartilaginous, rarely revolute;f leaf 

 tissue herbaceous to rigid-herbaceous, usually somewhat shining be- 

 low, the Costal scales smaller, usually numerous, tan, fawn, and buff, 

 rarely araneous ; veins rarely raised below, the vein spaces 13-18 to 

 I cm. Sporophyls 92-146 cm. long; stipes 43-85 cm. long (one 

 specimen has a chestnut cast, otherwise like the sterile) ; lamina 

 28-66 cm. long, slightly or not reduced at the base, somewhat re- 

 duced at the apex; pinnae 24-40-jugate, 8-18 cm. long, 3-4 mm. 

 wide, with a sterile tip 5-10 mm. long, petioled, the lower bases 

 rounded or cordate; sporangia very dark brown; indusium irregu- 

 larly lacerate. 



Type locality: Jamaica. 



Distribution: Cuba (?), Jamaica, Santo Domingo, and Porto 



Rico. 



Specimens included: Jamaica: Road from Cinchona to 

 Morce's Gap, altitude 5,000 ft., Underwood 258 (Y). Blue Moun- 



* But s cm. long in some immature (?) specimens from Cuba; see later discussion 

 for other differences; a fragment from Jamaica consists of but two pinnae which are 

 42 cm. long. One abnormal specimen from Jamaica, Underwood 2og8, has pinnae 



2.4 cm. wide. 



t Two growing plants of 5. lineata now in the New York Botanical Garden 

 conservatories have pinnae with non-revolute margins, which are narrowly cartilag- 

 inous and inconspicuously but sharply and finely serrate. 



