176 A SYNOPSIS OF THE GENUS SELAGINELLA. 



flowering it stands out at right angles. At this time the spikes are 

 more or less enclosed in the leaf-sheaths, and have no tendency to 

 break up into joints. The ripe grain is free, but enclosed in the 

 glumes, and held firmly between the excavation in the rachis and 

 the closely adpressed lowest glume ; the rachis now readily dis- 

 articulates, at points below the origin of each lowest glume, into 

 short joints. I may add that in the upper flowers the lodicules, 

 which are thick, obtuse, or truncate, are evidently attached to the 

 sides of the palea, i.e., stipular ; the ovary is very distinctly bifid 

 above. 



TeinosUichijum f macidatnm Trim., n. sp. 



Adiantum iithiopicum L. {A. emarginatum Bory). — Mr. Ferguson 

 detected this widely distributed fern in abundance above Elgin 

 Estate, in Upper Dimlula, in a locality apparently native. But, as 

 it was also found growing among the coffee of the same estate, and 

 has been for many years a cultivated species in the island, it may 

 be well doubted whether the locality is a truly natural one. Some 

 foreign ferns readily establish themselves in the warm, moist rocky 

 valleys of the cofi'ee districts, and a form of Gymnogramma p('ruviana 

 has become a very abundant plant in many such places with all the 

 look of a native plant. 



Ophioglossum lusitanicum L. — I first discovered this as a very 

 minute form growing in the crevices of rocks at DambuUa in 

 December, 1881, during the north-east monsoon rains. This de- 

 pauperate state is apparently the (>. gramincion of Willdenow, 

 originally sent from Madras. Specimens lately collected at Uma 

 Oya, on the course of the Maha-weli Eiver, have broader barren 

 fronds, and approach O. vulgatam, of which small forms also 

 occur here. The species of this genus seem to have been unduly 

 multiplied. 



Isoetes coromandelina L. f. — Collected on Dambulla Hill, 1881. 

 I have given a full account of this as a Ceylon plant, with a figure, 

 in the volume of this Journal for 1881 (pp. 353, =i= t. 234). 



A SYNOPSIS OF THE GENUS SELAOINELLA. 

 By J. G. Baker, F.R.S., &c. 



(Coiitinneil from p. 157.) 

 r*^* The following species should he inserted cafter S. intertexta on p. 155.] 

 // 257'''S. Kirkii, n. sp. — Stems continuous, trailing, 6-9 in. long, 

 with rootlets from nearly all the nodes ; branches short, ascending, 

 with a few short branchlcts. Leaves of lower plane very lax on the 

 branches, only the few upper ones of final branchlets contiguous, 

 oblong-lanceolate, acute, bright green, membranous, ^ in. long, 

 rouncled on both sides at the base ; midrib central ; leaves of upper 



* A misprint at p. 354, line 4 from bottom, may be corrected here, where 

 " x-eceived " should be " second." 



