472 Benedict: The genus Ceratopteris 



Type from British Guiana, Essequibo, Parker. 



Specimens seen : British Guiana, Parker ; Jenman^ U; Lepri- 

 eur ; Brazil: Riedel ; Regnell ; Florida: A. H. Curtiss,'E>t. John's 

 River, j6go, U, E, and N, Withlacoochee River, 3p73, N ; Cuba : 

 Wright J pj 6, E. 



It is hard to understand how this very distinct species has so 

 long been considered merely a form of the very different Old 

 World species. Judging from the information obtainable, the two 

 occupy entirely different habitats, the American species occurring 

 always in the water, either floating or at least with the stem and 

 roots submerged, the other, according to Mr. Williams' notes, only 

 occasionally if at all in normally inundated soil. Goebel, who has 

 seen Hooker's species growing in Guiana, states that it occurs 

 either floating or rooting in the mud nearer shore, and that the 

 two types differ considerably in habit. In the floating plants, the 

 stipes are, as noted in the description, bulbous, and the leaves are 

 all rather short. This is the form collected by A. H. Curtiss in 

 the St. John's River, Florida, where, according to D. C. Eaton, he 

 found it in water ten feet deep, and probably also that figured in 

 the Engler & Prantl Pflanzenfamilien under the family Parkeriaceae. 

 It is in this form that the sterile leaves grade into the sporophyls 

 by insensible modifications in the shape of the ultimate segments. 

 In the near shore form this gradation does not occur, the sporo- 

 phyls are much taller than the sterile leaves, and the stipes are not 

 bulbous. This form has been well figured by Hooker & Greville, 

 Icones Fihcum //. ^7. /, 2, 



4. Ceratopteris deltoidea sp. nov. 



Stem slender, rootless, the roots developed from a swollen 

 place in the stipe a short distance from the stem : leaves alternate, 

 successive in development, up to 65 cm. long ; youngest leaves 

 sessile or short-stalked, the lamina simple, ovate or deltoid : fol- 

 lowing leaves broadly pentagonal or deltoid, 3-7-lobed, the lobes 

 mostly deltoid, acute, the basal division sometimes also lobed : 

 mature sterile leaves 25-50 cm, long, the stipes 10-20 cm. long, 

 sparsely scaly below, flattened, the lamina deltoid, acute, 20-3 5 cm, 

 long, 15-25 cm, broad, pinnate-pinnatifid or 2-pinnate-pinnatifid on 

 the lowest pinnae : pinnae broadly deltoid, 9-12 cm. long, 9-14 cm. 

 broad, acute, oblique, the penultimate divisions cut halfway to the 

 mid-vein, the ultimate segments large and full, 3-4 cm. long, 2-3 cm. 



