258 JAMAICA FEliNS. 



pubeniloiis and grejash with scattered lanate scales ; veiiis once 

 forked at the base ; sori in a double line close along the midrib, 

 not reaching the apex, inserted at the forking of the veins ; 

 involucre membranous, cup- shaped, its margin usually entire. 

 No. 107, Herb. Kew, 1877. — Bare ; a singular and beautiful 

 species, well marked by its habit, especially in the absence of a 

 real trunk. 



C}/athea eJcf/coif;, Hew. This and C. Scrra, Willd., are the only 

 low-land species, all the rest occurring above 4000 feet altitude. 



Cyathea SchanscJnn, ]\Iart. This is confined to a higher elevation 

 than any other species attains, and is found clustering on and 

 around the apex of Blue Mountain Peak. 



12." ALsopmLA PAEvuLA, Jtiiman, n. sp. — Trunk 10 to 30 feet 

 high, hardly thicker than a broomstick, the scars of the fallen 

 fronds small and crowded ; stipites numerous, 12 to 15 inches long, 

 slender, channelled, curved, straw-coloured or brown, armed 

 beneath with short blunt i)i"icklGS, and clothed at the base with 

 linear-lanceolate acuminate chaff-coloured scales ^ inch long ; 

 fronds 3 to -3^ feet long, 18 to 24 inches wide, bipinnate ; pinns 

 9 to 12 inches long, 3 to 4 inches wide, the apices acuminate and 

 pinnatifid, not sessile ; cost« slender, pubescent above, beneath 

 naked; pinnules oblong-ligulate, the obtusely serrate apices 

 shortly acuminate, sessile, 2 inches long, -f to i inch wide, deeply 

 pinnatifid ; segments blunt, 4 inch long, 1 to 1^ line wide, sub- 

 falcate, the margins slightly crenulato- dentate ; surfaces naked, 

 but the flexuose costulffi pubescent above, beneath havmg a few 

 small deciduous, obovate, pale scales in the axils formed with the 

 mid-vein of the segments; colour above light green, beneath 

 greyish ; texture sub-coriaceous ; veins pellucid, forked in the 

 outer half or third, reaching the edge; sori pale, copious, 

 ascending half to two-thirds up the segments, inserted just below 

 the forking of the veins ; rachis sparsely prickly below, quite naked. 

 No. 97, Herb. Kew, 1878. — This has the cutting of A. aspera, but 

 contrasts with that species by its small, slender habit, many fronds, 

 and pale colour in all its parts. Mr. Baker looks upon it as a 

 form of asppya, judging from pinnse, but the best distinguishing 

 characters are shown by the trunk and stipes. These parts of 

 the species of this and allied genera are so cumbersome to 

 collectors from their bulk and prickliness, that they rarely reach 

 European herbaria ; and yet as good distinguishing characters are 

 afforded by them as by the fronds. Indeed, the Jamaican tree 

 ferns are as well individualized, and can be as readily identified, by 

 the characters which the trunk alone exhibits as by those shown 

 by the fronds alone. 



Dlcksonia clcutarioides, Fee. 



HymenophyUum L'Hernwncri, Mett. ? 



H. sphcBrocarpum , V. D. B. 



H. Iiirmtum, Sw., var. H. lanatuni, Fee. 



H. ciliaUan, Sw., var. H. yratiim, Fee. 



H. eleyantisdmuw, Fee. 



11. Ihieare, Sw., var. antillense, Jenman : fronds uniform, long 



