. NOTES ON THE FERN-FLORA OF CHINA. 239 
Mr. Baker's mention of this country was, I believe, in reference to my 
specimen 
I may take ibis Visi of remarking, in connection with my former 
observations on the coalescence of tribes (Journ. Bot. Vol. III. p. 342), 
that a very marked transition is effected between the genera A spleninm 
and <Aspidium, by such species as Asplenium gymnogrammoides, K1., 
and 4. puncticaule, var. bipinnatisecta, Mett. (= A. macrocarpum, Bl.) 
on the one hand, and Aspidium splendens, Wall., and A. obtusissimum, 
Mett.! (= A. sparsum, B. latum, Thw. n. 1369!) on the other; and, 
again, through Asplenium Geringianum, Mett., A. Hohenackerianum, 
Kze., and their allies, and Aspidium emulum, Sw. I think it is diffi- 
cult to look at these representatives of their respective genera without 
believing them to be really allied, not merely somewhat alike. The 
true position of Athyrium, in so far at least as regards some of the 
species, seems to me still very much open to question; and Milde 
insists strongly on its distinctness as a genus. 
r. Wells Williams gathered at Ku-pei-kau, in the summer of 1865, 
from fissures in the bricks of the Great Wall, a curious dwarf variety 
of Polypodium lingua, Sw., with oblong fronds $ to 1 inch long only, 
borne on stipites of nearly equal length. 
With respect to Polypodium Chinense, Mett., separated from P. nor- 
male, Don, mainly on account of a more complicated venation, and the 
absence of paraphyses, I may remark that P. normale is placed b 
Mettenius himself, in his monograph of ngu (‘ Dispositio Spe- 
cierum,' p. 24), in a section to which he ascribes *' sori iri A nd. 
destituti;" nor are any figured in Hooker and Greville's plate of P 
longifrons, Wall. (Ic. Fil. i. t. 65). The only Indian (Khasia) speci- 
men of P. normale, to which I have at present access, has the sori too 
much rubbed and defaced, from careless drying, to be trustworthy on 
this point; but, so far as concerns the venation, I can see no appre- 
ciable difference between it and the Chinese Fern (Macao, Hance! 
Fokien, De Grijs!), the number of free thickened veinlets in the 
areole being subject to a good deal of variation in the fronds of each. 
The late Mr. Oldham sent me, from Formosa, a fine specimen of 
Polypodium lomarioides, Kze., quite accordant with those from the 
Philippines. 
