APPENDIX. No. V. _ AGI 
parts of the coast and to India, appears to connect in some respects Saccharum 
with Panicum. 
The remarks I haye to make on the Acotyledonous Plants from Congo, relate 
entirely to 
FILICES, of which there are twenty-two species in the collection, The 
far greater part of these are new, but all of them are referable to well esta- 
blished genera, particularly to Nephrodium, Asplenium, Pteris, and Polypo- 
dium. There are also among them two new species of ddiantum, a genus of 
which no species had been before observed on this line of coast. / richomanes 
and Hymenophyllum are wanting in the collection, and these genera, which 
seem to require constant shade and humidity, are very rare in equinoctial 
Africa. Of Osmundacew, the herbarium contains only one plant, which is a 
new species of Lygodium, and the first of that genus that has been noticed 
from the continent of Africa. 
Among the few species common to other countries, the most remarkable is 
Gleichenia Hermanni,* which I have compared and found to agree with 
specimens from the continent of India, from Ceylon, New Holland, and even 
from the Island of St. Vincent. 
Acrostichum stemaria of M. de Beauvois,+ which hardly differs from A. alci- 
corne of New Holland, and of several of the islands of the Malayan Archipelago, 
was also observed; and Acrostichum aureum, which agrees with specimens 
from equinoctial America, was found growing in plenty among the mangroves 
near the mouth of the river. 
I have formerly observed that the number of Filices, unlike that of the 
other Cryptogamous orders, (Lycopodines excepted,) is greatest in the lower 
latitudes; and, as I then supposed, near or somewhat beyond the tropics. 
The latter part of this statement, however, is not altogether correct; the 
maximum of the order, both in absolute and relative number of species, being 
more probably within the tropics, though at considerable heights. 
The degree of latitude alone being given, no judgment can be formed 
respecting the proportion of Filices: for besides a temperature somewhat 
* Prodr. Flor. Nov. Holl. \,p.161. Mertensia dichotoma Willd. Sp. Pl. 5, p. 11.. 
+ Flore d’Oware 1, p. 2, t. 2. 
