102 SPH.EROCOCCOIDE.E. 



V. 



colour when recent is a brilliant purplish lake, reflecting prismatic hues, especially 

 when viewed through water. The substance is rather rigid, containing much saline 

 matter and mannite. In drying, it does not adhere to paper. 



I do not possess American specimens of this plant, and transfer this description 

 from Ner. Austr. p. 118. An outline drawing of Capt. Wilkes's plant sent to me 

 by Prof Bailey seems to accord well with my Cape of Good Hope specimens, and 

 I formerly examined one of Capt. Beechey's which appeared also similar. 



2. Kywese^ A fimbriata, Post, and Rupr.; frond palmate or multifid, the segments 

 cuneate, deeply lobed, round-topped, traversed by numerous dichotomous nerves 

 which coalesce into a broad compound nerve or imperfect midrib toward the base ; 

 the margin of fertile specimens fimbriate with small, roundish leaflets. Post, and 

 Rupr. Illustr.p. 15, t. 38. Kiltz. Sp. Alg. p. 873. /. Ag. Sp. Alg. 2, p. 674. Hy- 

 menena Jissa, ^. marginata, Harv. in Bot. Beech. Yoy.p. 407- 



Hab. St. Francisco, Dr. Sinclair. Golden Gate, Capt. Pike (21). Norfolk Bay, 

 Postells and Ruprecht. (v. s. in Herb. T. C. D.) 



Frond 12 — 14 inches long, with a linear-cuneate stipe three to four inches long, 

 nearly filled in its lower part with a broad cartilaginous midrib. As the frond 

 gradually widens upwards, the midrib branches into numerous strongly elevated 

 nerves which divide more and more, distributing themselves among the lacinise of 

 the palmate or multifid membrane. Each segment is broadly linear, half an inch 

 to an inch wide, cuneate, rounded at the top, two thirds or more of its surface 

 occupied by the dichotomously branched, longitudinal nerves, which in some spe- 

 cimens are very strongly elevated, with deep furrows between them, in others less 

 evident and even somewhat obliterated. The margin in young specimens is flat and 

 smooth, in older ones fimbriate with minute roundish processes, which bear the 

 fructification. Tetrasp)ores in the thickened marginal lobes, precisely as in Botryo- 

 glossum. Structure, of several rows of quadrate, muriform cells. Colour a dark 

 purple-lake. Substance rigid. It does not adhere to paper. 



This plant has so much in common with Botryoglossum platycarpum, that it is 

 hardly natural to place them in difi'erent genera. 



V. NITOPHYLLUM. Grev. 



Frond rosy- red or purplish, expanded, irregularly laciniated, unsymmetrical, 

 delicately membranaceous, areolated, without midrib, either altogether destitute of 

 nerves or having towards the base a few irregular, branching, vanishing nerves. 

 Conceptacles sessile, scattered, globose, without orifice ; placenta basal, crowned wth 



