COLLECTION OF FERNS GATHERED IN CENTRAL CHINA. 199 



ON" A COLLECTION OF FERNS GATHERED IN CENTRAL 



CHINA BY DR. SHEARER. 



By J". G. Baker, F.L.S. 



Through the intervention of Mr. Harbord Lewis, of Liverpool, I 

 have lately had the opportunity of studying a collection of Ferns 

 made in a region of the great Chinese empire of which the botany 

 was previously almost entirely unknown. They are from the 

 neighbourhood of Kiu-kiang, which is situated in the very heart of 

 the country, near the thirtieth parallel of latitude, on the banks 

 of the Yang-tse-kiang, about 300 miles from the east coast and 

 250 above Nankin. The collection was made in the year 1873 by 

 Dr. Shearer, of Liverpool, and as it is one of peculiar interest, 

 I give a complete list of the species that it contains, following the 

 arrangement and nomenclature of our " Synopsis Filicum," the 

 numbers prefixed to the new species indicating their position in the 

 sequence there followed. f 



Gleichenia dichotoma, Willd. 



G. glauca, Hook, {longisdma^ Blume.) 



Davallia tenuifolia, Sw. 



Onoclea {Struthiopteris) orientalis, Hook. This was known before 

 in the East Himalayas and Japan, but not in China. 



Adiantum pedatum, Linn. 



Omjchium japonicum, Bunge. 



Pteris serridata, L. fil. 



P. semipinnata, Linn. 



12* P. (EuPTERis) iN^QTJALis, Baker, n.sp., Caudex not seen. Stem 

 1-1^ foot long, castaneous at the very base, stramineous above, quite 

 free from scales, as is also the rachis. Frond lanceolate-deltoid bi- 

 pinnate, 1-1^ foot long, a foot broad. Pinnae ascending, touching one 

 another in the middle, lanceolate, unequal-sided, remarkably caudate, 

 growing gradually smaller from the lowest upwards, the lower ones 

 half a foot long, 2-2|- inches broad (or much more if the lowest 

 pinnule be lengthened out), with a long entire point, and numerous 

 close, curving lanceolate pinnules which reach down to the rachis, 

 those of the lower side always the largest, about 1 J inch long by § inch 

 broad, those of the upper side shorter, and the upper ones often 

 obliterated by the long tail-like point of the pinnae being decurrent 

 further on the upper side of their rachis than on the lower. Above the 

 compound are many close linear-ligulate simple pinnae, the ulti- 

 mate divisions of the frond being finely-toothed, especially towards the 

 tip. Texture membranous, both surfaces green and quite naked. 

 Veinlets of pinnules fine, distinct, moderately close, forked. Sori 

 narrow, falling short of the tip of the segments. Involucre firm, per- 

 sistent, glabrous, pale, half a line broad. We have the plant also from 

 Nagasaki, in Japan, gathered both by Oldham and Maximowicz. It 

 has a general habit like longipiymula, but the segments are larger, more 

 curved and more acute ; and it approximates from that species strongly 

 towards semipinnata, by the long caudate tips of its pinnre and their 



t See Dr. Hance's paper, Journ. Bot., 1874, p. 258. 



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