﻿656 Slosson: Notes on Trichomanes 



form of the plant. Hooker and Greville, commenting upon the 

 indusium in relation to Plumier's plant, with which they supposed 

 theirs to correspond, write: "A remarkable character is described 

 by Plumier in the fructification of this plant; for the fronds, he 

 says, are 'garnies la pluspart, dans le fond de leur decoupure, 

 d'une petite boete, ou calice, rempli de plusieurs vesicules, et 

 scele par un couvercle garni d'un petit poil dans le milieu.' Now 

 that the involucres should be closed by a convex lid, through 

 which the columella is continued, we consider to be a circumstance 

 impossible in the genus: but we can very well believe that, to an 

 eye unassisted by the microscope, the large expanded and entire 

 (not two-lipped) mouth of the involucre may have the appearance 

 of a lid. And this dilatation of the mouth of the involucre is more 

 remarkable than in any other species of the genus we are ac- 

 quainted with. We shall be happy if other botanists concur with 

 us in this opinion, and thus determine with tolerable satisfaction 

 the identity of a species, which no one seems to have understood 

 since the time of Plumier." In this connection it may be stated 

 that in dried specimens, at least, of the plant I refer to T. pyxidi- 

 ferum, the indusium, while not strictly two-lipped, is at first bent 

 inward at the apex in a falsely two-lipped fashion, the two edges 

 pressed close together except where the "columella" pushes 

 through, so that it resembles a saccate involucre closed by a sort 

 of convex top, although, of course, this cannot be called a "lid" 

 in any strict sense of the word. No " streaks " or "lines," similar 

 to those I have described in leaves of T. pyxidiferum, occur in 

 T. hymenophylloides . 



Specimens of T. hymenophylloides are in the Underwood Her- 

 barium, as follows: — 



Porto Rico: Maricao, F. L. Stevens 1987; El Gigante, F. L. 

 Stevens 1512; on tree fern, Monte Cerrote, near Adjuntas, 900-1050 

 m. alt., Britton & Brown 5426; on tree fern, between Adjuntas 

 and Jayuya, Arroyo de los Corchos, 800-900 m. alt., Britton, 

 Cowell & Brown 5267a; creeping on tree trunks in forest, Rio 

 Prieto and adjacent hills, Sierra de Naguabo, 910 m. alt., /. 

 .1 . Shafer 3622; on dripping wet rocks, Rio Prieto and adjacent 

 ' J- A. Shafer 3597; on rocks in mountain 

 juntas, Britton & Shafer 2070. 



