ICONES FILICUM SINICARUM 



9i 



PLATE 45. 



POLYPODIUM ELLIPTICUM Thunberg 



POLYPODIACEAE 



/ 



* 



POLYPODIUM ELLIPTICUM Thunb., Fl. Jap. 335 (1784); Christ, Farnkraut. Erde 107; 



Diels in Nat. Pfl. Fam. 1. 4. 318; v. A. v. R., Malay. Ferns 677 (1908). 



Gymnogram me ellipiica Baker m Syn. Fil. 388. 



* 



Selliguea elliptica Bedd., Handb. 392 !•«.■•' 



Gymnogramme dectirrens Hook., Spec. Fil. 5; 161 

 Selliguea dectirrens Bedd., Ferns Brit. Ind. t. 150. 

 Grammitis decurrens Wall., HK. et Grev. in Ic. Fil. t. 6. 



* 



Gymnogramme pentaphylla Baker in Kew Bull. (1898) 233. 



1 



Rhizome thick, woody, wide-creeping, blackish, clad in dense lanceolate acuminate, 



m * 



blackish, clathrate more or less adpressed scales; stipes scattered, 20-40 cm. long, firm, 

 erect, naked, pale or straw-coloured; fronds 20-50 cm, long, 13-25 cm. or more broad, 

 oblong-ovate, pinnatifid down to the rachis into 4-10 rarely more pinnae on each side 



* 



under the terminal segment similar to the lateral ones; pinnae linear-lonceolate or 

 lanceolate-oblong, acuminate, 1-3 cm. broad, 5-20 cm. long, horizontally patent, the 

 lower ones scarcely reduced, mostly connected by decurrent oblique bases, which form 

 a wing to the rachis, margin usually entire, sometimes obscurely undulate or repand; 

 texture herbaceous, quite glabrous; main veins slender, not distinct to the edge, 

 intermediate veinlets anastomosing copiously with a row of large costal areolae with 



* 



included bifid veinlets, all jointed near the margin; sori linear, oblique, almost reaching 

 the midrib, but not the margin. 



Distribution: Tropical Asia; China: Kwantung, Kwangsi, Yunnan, Szechwan, 

 Hupeh, Kiangsi, Anwhei, Chekiang, Kiangsu, Fukien, also in Korea and Japan. 



A Common but most variable fern in South and Central China. It often varies 

 from 15-80 cm. tall with 2-10 lateral pinnae 5-25 cm. long, 0.8-4 cm. broad. In extreme 

 forms, the pinnae are only about 5 mm. broad. P . flexilobium Christ and P.fauriei 

 (Christ) Nakai are better regarded as reduced forms of the present species, as the ample 

 materials at my disposal show all gradations from Christ's P. flexilobium upward.— 



R. C. C. ' 



Plate 45. Fig. 1. Habit sketch (natural size). 2. A portion of frond, showing venation (x 2) 

 3. Scales from rhizome (x 16). 



