? 210 | "CHARACTERS OF TRIBES AND GENERA. 
or connected, this species, wiih several others, including 
Goniopteris Sandvicense and its allies, seems to form a 
natural group, which, with Lastrea villosa, may, on the 
character of general habit, be viewed as forming a natural 
genus of sub-arboroid Ferns, 
109.—Mzsocmnzwa, R. Br. (1838). 
Sphærostephanos, J. Sm. (1838) ; Nephrodium sp. Hook. 
Sp. Fil, 
Vernation fasciculate, erect. Fronds 2 to 4 feet high, 
bipinnatifid. Veins costeform, pinnate; the lower pair of 
venules anastomosing, the others free, parallel. Receptacles 
medial, elongated. Sori oblong linear. Indusiwm oblong, 
attached longitudinally on the centre of the receptacle, 
having sporangia on its axis on each side, its margin free. 
Type. Polypodium villosum and P. caudigerum, Wall. 
lllust. Hook. and Bauer, Gen. Fil., t. 24; Hook. Fil. 
Exot., t. 62; Moore Ind. Fil., p. 43, B; J. Sm. Ferns, 
Brit. and For, » fig. 66. 
Oss.—This genus was first noticed by Brown in Heck: 
field’s “Planta Javanica,’ and about the same time de- 
scribed by me in Hooker and Bauer’s “Genera Filicum” 
under the name Spherostephanos, Later observations have 
led me to view it as scarcely distinct from Nephrodium, ` 
. with which the species agree in habit. The only difference 
: that Brown and myself considered as generic consists in 
the sori being oblong linear, and furnished with an ` 
. elongated indusium attached along the centre of the sorus, - 
having the appearance of being double, like that of some - 
species of Athyrium, but in Meschlena it is in a single 
piece, and cannot be viewed otherwise than as a lengthened 
reniform indusium of Nephrodiwm fitted to the erant 
