CHONANTHELLA | FRULLANIA. 9 
S.) solum in planitie, vel in Andium radicibus, nusquam supra 600™ 
alt.; caeteras ommes in Andibus sylvaticis, inter 1400 et 3500™ alt. E 
speciebus prius descriptis quatuor, sc. Fr. hians, Arece, gibba, et arietina, 
per Americam tropicam australioremque, a Mexico ad Brasiliz et Chili 
confinia usque late diffuse ; alize nostra, hic primum descripte, postea 
forsan in terris etiam distantibus detectee fuerint. Ex Asia tropica 
et Africa australi species perpaucas cognovimus. 
Obs. The most important character of this group is to have the perianth 
normally 4-angled on the section, there being two postical keels in 
addition to the two lateral ones ; whereas in all the succeeding groups it 
is normally trigonous, with only a single postical keel. The transverse 
section is not square, but trapezoidal, the antical face being parallel to, 
but wider than, the postical, while the two lateral faces are oblique. All 
the faces are often depressed or concave, and in several of the larger 
species supplementary keels, or folds, obscure the primarily prismatic 
form, and render the perianth regularly 10- or 12-plicate. In a few other 
species the antical and postical faces (especially) are occasionally traversed 
by slight ridges for part of their length, so that the perianth becomes 
pluriplicate, but unequally, the four primary keels being always much 
more pronounced than the intercalated ones. 
A more obvious feature resides in the large, and often polyphyllous, 
involucres, of which the innermost bracts (at the least) are connate for a 
good height up with the intervening bracteole into a wide-mouthed 
obpyramidal vase, while their free apices are often deeply slashed, or 
ciliate, or toothed. 
We have no British species of this group, and only Fr. dilatata ap- 
proaches the smaller species by the galeate subhemispherical lobule, but 
by its trigonous scabrous perianth it really belongs to the following group 
(Trachycolea). The Chonantheliz are usually much larger than Fr. 
dilatata, from 1 to 4 inches long, sometimes as much as 6 or 8 inches, of 
a yellowish-green colour, rarely brownish, flaccid, vaguely branched, or, 
if pinnate, then with unequal branches, mostly short. They are usually 
prostrate, rarely stratified, but sometimes in pendulous tufts. The 
smaller species form circumscribed patches on the bark of trees, or 
cushions on the twigs. Leaves large, imbricated, usually roundish-ovate 
and very obtuse,—scarcely ever acute or toothed ; the large broad lobule, 
at the fold subcontiguous and parallel to the stem, is usually explanate 
in its lower half, and in a few species more or less cut or crispato-sinuate, 
but the upper portion is mostly galeate-semiglobose, but compressed, and 
sometimes almost complanate towards the orifice, at the arch turgid 
and subcylindrical, so as to resemble a curved horn or beak (whence, I 
suppose, Taylor’s name for one of the species, F’r. arietina). In a few of 
the smaller species the whole of the lobule is involved into a hemis- 
pherical reversed sac with a truncate mouth, without any explanate 
lower portion (or “appendiculus” as it is called in “Syn. Hep.”) In 
nearly every species the lobule is occasionally unrolled into an ovate- 
lanceolate lamina, or is merely hooded at the apex. 
The underleaves are often large—scarcely smaller than the leaves. 
broadly orbicular, and so deeply cordate at the base that the round 
auricles sometimes overlap each other ; bidentate or very shortly bifid at 
the apex—in a single species cloven to the middle,—in two other species 
occasionally quite entire. They are flatter than in most other Frullanie, 
TRANS. BOT. SOO, EDIN. VOL. XV. B 
