58 BURMA, ITS PEOriE AND FRODUCTIOSS. 



S. PUBESCENS, Spr. 



S. ELAIiELLATA, Spr. 

 S. CAULESCEXS, Spr. 



S. Wallichii, Spr. 



S. ATROVIRIDIS, Spr. 



S. CAUDATA, Spr. 



S. RADICATA, Spr. 



S. TAGIN'ATA, Spr. 



S. TEXELLA,' Spr. Kamorta, ^(/(' Kurz. 



PsiLOTuii,- Str. 

 {BernhanUa, Willil.) 



A genus of a single species. Epiphytal, erect, aljout one foot liigh, slender, 

 dichotomously branched; stem S-sided ; tliccre axilhiiy, 3-ceIled; leaves minute, 

 bristle-like. On trees in damp jungles towards the south ; rare. 



P. TniarETitrii, S\v. 



Uernhurdia dtchotoma, "Willd. 



Order MAESILIACE^. 



Lycopodal Acrogcns, -with reproductive bodies of two kinds. The order is 

 divisible into two distinct groups, to one of which belong Marsilea and Pilularia ; 

 and to the other Azolla and Sali-inia. All the genera are aquatic. — Berkeley, 



Salvinia, Micheli. 



A genus of small aquatic plants, with a filiform floating rhizome or root-stock, 

 alternate imbricated fern-like leaves, and bladder-like fruit on short leafless branches. 

 "All the supposed species are reducible to one which occurs in the south of Europe 

 in stagnant pools, and is found in all the warmer parts of the world." — Berheley. 



S. CUCrLLATA, Ifoxb. (M.) 



Order FILICES. FEEXS. 



The late Dr. Mason, in his introductory remarks under this head, after ac- 

 knowledging what he kindly calls a "valuable Catalogue and Synoptical table" 

 furnished by me, goes on to say that "Synonymy is the great opprobrium of 

 Natural History. The difficulty in the study of nature is not in what God has 

 made, but in deciphering the illegible characters that man has written upon her 

 face. She places us on an enchanting ground of hill and dale, dingle and dell, 

 stream and streamlet, and ' every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for 

 food ' ; but naturalists, by the multiplicity of barbarous names they have heaped 

 on the same object, have turned the wliole into a continent of mud. 



" A tribe of ferns with the son continuous on the margin, and easily recognized, 

 Linnffius designated Pteris or plume, the Greek name for ferns. Alodcm naturalists, 

 Dutch and English, German and French, have so imjjrored on him and on each other 

 that I'teris now appears in different books under eigldeen iliiierent names, and, to 

 complete the cycle, showing the impertinence of those changes. Sir Wm. Hooker, 

 the most distinguished of living Botanists, has gone back to the old Linnaian genus 

 and adopted it in his new work on ferns. 



^ .\mong species dtihife of SprinG^. 



' Presumably trom \fii\6a!, to strip off thp liair, iu allusion to the bare, uaked appearance oi tbe 

 plant, which may fairly be said to be lealltss. 



