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TWO NEW FERNS OF THE GENUS POYPO^ 

 DIUM, FROM JAMAICA.* 



By William R. Maxon, 



Aid in Cryrtogamic Botany, Division of Plants, U. S. National Museum. 



The two species of Polypodium here described as new were 

 gathered in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica by Prof. L. M. Under- 

 wood and tlie writer in the spring of 1903. Both were fairly well 

 characterized by Jenman in his synoptical list of the ferns and 

 fern allies of Jamaica, but were, however, associated wrongly by 

 him, in the one case with an extralimital species, in the other with 

 South American plants doubtfully the same and, at any rate, under 

 an untenable name. The writer is indebted to Professor Under- 

 wood for the privilege of examining the material of the Jenman 

 herbarium now preserved in the collections of the New York Bo- 

 tanical Garden. 



Polypodium rigens sp. nov. 



Plant 15-28 cm. high, with IO-15 slender rigid fronds : rhizome 

 about 4 mm. thick, elongate, short-creeping or ascending, the gray- 

 ish inconspicuous chaff noticeably iridescent under a lens, narrow, 

 long-acuminate : stipes 2-4.5 cm. long, rigid, for the most part 

 closely set, dark brownish, thickly covered with long spreading 

 bright-brown hairs; lamina 13-23. 5 cm. long, 1-2 cm. broad, li- 

 near or linear-lanceolate, tapering from near the middle to both 

 apex and base, erect but usually arcuate toward the apex, dark- 

 green above, conspicuously lighter on the under surface, coriaceous, 

 opaque, cut to the blackish rachis into 45-60 pairs of alternate 

 approximate pinnae ; pinnae exactly oblong, regularly rounded at 

 the apices, the largest (near the middle of the lamina) 10 mm. by 

 3.5 mm., decreasing in size very gradually above to give rise to a 

 terminal cauda, which is crenate and finally entire, decreasing 

 rather more abruptly below, the lowermost pinnae minute (2 mm.), 

 slightly more distant, moVe or less subopposite and dilated upon 

 the upper side ; the upper two-thirds of the lamina soriferous, the 

 sori borne midway to the margins (4-6 pairs to each pinna) on the 

 obscure free simple veins, the sporangia mixed with a few bright- 

 brown hairs, similar hairs borne rather abundantly on both sides 

 of the rachis but sparingly along the midveins and sterile veins on 

 the under surface ; the sori at length nearly or quite confluent, co- 

 vering the surface of the pinna from base nearly to apex and 

 against the revolute margins. 



Type in the United States National Herbarium, no. 427566 ; col- 

 lected from trees on the heavily wooded upper slopes of John 

 Crow Peak, Jamaica, altitude 1,650-1,800 meters, by William R. 

 Maxon, )w. 1,346, April 18, 1 903. The type sheet comprises two 

 plants and several detached fronds, all of which are perfectly 

 characteristic of the species as represented by the following speci- 

 mens, all from Jamaica : 



* Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. XXVII— No. 1374. 



