3. PARKERIACE^. 



FAM. 3. PARKERIACE^. 



Marsh or water ferns rooting in mud with eimple, simply pinnate older 

 often submersed leaves and pinnately divided aerial fertile leaves with 

 narrower segments, venation mostly longitudinal, distantly anasto- 

 mosing. Sporangia scattered dorsally on the veins, not united into 

 sori, subsessile with a vertical annulus which is either complete, partial 

 or obsolete. Indusium 0, but margin of frond recurved and meeting 

 near the costa. Prothallia dioecious. Female with central axis of 

 several layers of cells. Male smaller thinner and sub-spathulate with 

 numerous antheridia on the margin. 



1. CERATOPTERIS, Brong. 

 (The only genus.) 

 1. C. thalictroides, Brong. 



A succulent tufted fern 6-15" high, the stipes with large air-cells. 

 Barren fronds floating or erect, simple or slightly divided when young 

 or 2-3 pinnatifid with broad oblong segments. Fertile arising later, 

 2-3-pinnate with linear succulent subtubular (from the recurved 

 margins) segments. 



Swamps, rice-fields, etc. Common in Chota Nagpur ! Sambalpiu, Griff. ! 

 probably in all districts. Fr. c.s. Usually annual, but Beddome says if kept moist 

 perennial. 



It is sometimes cooked as a vegetable. 



FAM. ^. GLEICHENIACEiE. 



Terrestrial ferns with usually unlimited growth and climbing, 

 primary axis usually dichotomous, axes of higher orders attached 

 pinnately, often proliferous from the axils of the forks, veins all free. 

 Sori dorsal, terminal on or at the forks of the veins, small and con- 

 sisting of few (2-8) sporangia. Sporangia sessile or very shortly 

 stalked, with a transverse or oblique* annulus a little above the middle 

 and dehiscence vertical. Spores radia,! or bilateral. 



1. GLEICHENIA, Sm. 



Rhizome widely creeping, fronds scattered, dichotomously branched, 

 rarely simply pinnate. 



1. G. linearis, Bedd. Syn. G. dichotoma, Willd. 



A very handsome fern, widely spreading and sub-scandent with 

 repeatedly dichotomous branches, the lateral of limited growth, the 

 main axes of unlimited growth. Innovations densely covered with 

 ferruginous or golden hairs. Fronds coriaceous, glaucous beneath. 

 Pinnae in divaricate pairs at the forks, the lower pairs short 2-4", 

 the ultimate pairs sub-erect 6-10" long, pinnatifid or cut to the 



* The annulus of Gleichenia is always described as equatorial or transverse 

 and sub-equatorial, but it is sometimes (in the same plant) very nearly vertical 

 and may touch the short obpyramidal pedicel on one side. 



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