380 Broadhurst: Struthiopteris in North America 



stipes 4-50 cm. long, clustered, somewhat angulate, the color 

 varying from black and reddish black to dark violet, shining where 

 naked, the younger, at least, having scales which are seemingly 

 viscid and which dry as straight or hooked projections (appressed 

 in one large specimen); lamina 13-44 cm - l° n g> 7~ 2 5 cm - wide, 

 abruptly reduced at the base (type A, without vestigial pinnae), 

 gradually reduced at the apex, the rachis soon becoming naked 

 and shining; pinnae 12-50-jugate, oblong and lanceolate to nar- 

 rowly oblong, often opposite below, 4-10 cm. long, 8-16 mm. 

 wide, the apex acute,* obtuse or only apparently so in the thicker 

 forms with rolled pinnae, the bases subcordate to cordate or 

 unequally cordate, but 1-4 of the upper pinnae adnate, the rest 

 free, and the lower petioled; margins usually revolute,f the pinnae 

 themselves rolled in the heavier forms; leaf tissue coriaceous in the 

 smaller forms, membranous to rigid-herbaceous in the larger ones, 

 costae more or less scaly, under surface smooth ;| veins raised below, 

 sunken above in the coriaceous plants, the vein spaces 14-16 to 1 

 cm. Sporophyls 40-85 cm. long, but taller than the sterile in all 

 complete specimens seen; lamina 20-37 cm - l° n g; pinnae 11—25- 

 jugate, 4-5 mm. wide, the apex obtuse or with a sterile tip 3-7 

 mm. long, the bases cordate, the lower pinnae distinctly petioled 

 with spurlike protuberances ;§ the margins of the very dark and 

 heavy pinnae often with whitish spots corresponding to the vein 

 apices; sporangia very dark brown; indusium irregularly lacerate. 



* Fee says "tunc oblusiuscnlis, tunc acuminalis." Only the smaller specimens 

 seen show the blunt tips. 



t Irregularly so and serrate in a young, membranous plant from Dominica, 

 Lloyd 315. 



X Slightly araneous below in Duss 3710. 



§ All the fertile fronds of S. violacea bear curious spurlike protuberances in or near 

 the axils of most of the lower pinnae. They are plainly discernible to the naked eye 

 and usually 2-5 mm. long. Similar spurs are found with some of the lower pinnae 

 in a few of the petioled species: S. vivipara, S. Christii (very small), S. chiriquana 

 (apparently brittle and deciduous), 5. Schiedeana (few, but interesting in connection 

 with the twin pinnae seen in one specimen), S. striata (in the peculiar volcanic speci- 

 men from St. Vincent only, and as fiattish glandular areas), and in 5. Underwoodiana. 

 Fertile fronds of S. danaeacea and 5. varians were not accessible after this character 

 was noted. It does not occur in any of the non-petioled species. (It is present in the 

 fertile lamina of U. S. National Herbarium no. 575235, but there are indications that 

 it does not belong with the sterile one on that sheet.) Hooker (Spec. Fil. 3: 26. i860) 

 in speaking of the sterile frond of L. spectabilis remarks upon a "remarkable, rather 

 large, and distinct black glossy gland exactly resembling except in color a very com- 

 mon scale insect. Were it more constant," he adds, " I would consider this a distinct 

 species." No other reference to simdar growths on the rachis, either fertile or sterile, 

 has been found ; the somewhat abnormal Panama plant included in 5. chiriquana shows 

 occasional, elongated, glandular areas on the sterile rachis. 



