78 Ebony Spleenwort 
obtuse apex: pinne alternate or rarely two opposite, crowded 
often imbricated in sterile leaves, approximate or sometimes 
crowded in sporophylls; excepting sometimes the uppermost, 
dilated at base and auricled on upper side or both sides, lanceo- 
late or subfalcate or, especially the lower, oblong, the lowermost 
often unequally roundish-deltoid, obtuse or subacute or acute, 
subentire or undulate, or, especially the lower, slightly crenate, 
or serrate or, sometimes, obliquely cleft or pinnatifid, the lobes 
mostly serrate; beneath very obscurely, minutely and sparingly 
paleaceous, upper surface similar or glabrous: rachis reddish 
or light or dark chestnut-brown, glossy, terete or subterete below, 
above more or less furrowed on face, sparingly and obscurely 
paleaceous, palea similar to that of upper part of petiole; color 
of rachis in large leaves sometimes encroaching on under side of 
midveins of pinne: color otherwise olive green: texture firmly 
membranaceous. 
Venation pinnate, wholly free or with occasional areole: pri- 
mary branches of pinnz’s midveins, excepting the two basal, com- 
monly once forked or at apices of pinne simple, or in highly 
developed, especially in lobed or pinnatifid pinne, often bearing 
simple or once-forked branches and each forming a midvein of a 
lobe or segment; superior basal primary branch bearing a few 
simple or once-forked branches and forming midvein of superior 
basal auricle; inferior basal primary branch once-forked or sim- 
ilar to superior one, forming midvein of inferior basal auricle 
when this auricle is present. 
Sori oblong or linear, borne on branches of pinnz’s midveins 
and often on branches of midveins of pinne’s auricles or other 
lobes or segments; each sorus on a primary branch of the mid- 
vein, partly below its superior basal branch, extending along or 
