Nov. 1900.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 7 



asplenioidcs, Sw., hanging down by its hair-like stem from 

 the horizontal bough of a tree, with its narrow, tapering 

 fronds, six or seven inches long, bright green and trans- 

 parent, beautiful both in colour and in form. And here, 

 too, growing in a similar position, is another very fine 

 filmy of a peculiar brownish grey colour, forming a great 

 mass of narrow, pendent fronds, eighteen inches or more in 

 length, and covered all over with a woolly hairiness. It is 

 H. sericeum, Sw., a fern that has a character of its own, and 

 can be mistaken for no other. I believe it is very difficult 

 to cultivate in this country, its dense woolliness rendering 

 it very liable to damp off. Among filmies of this elegant, 

 tapering, pendent type of frond may be mentioned here 

 Trichomanes siniwsum, Eich., though it does not grow at 

 this altitude, and does not seem to be very common in 

 Jamaica at all. I found it in fine form near the Grand 

 Etang, in Grenada. In my specimens, the frond, exclusive 

 of the short stem, reaches to ten inches. It has something 

 of the look of Hymenophyllum asplenioides, but the lobes 

 are much sharper. It is very thin in the texture, and 

 of a fine pale green colour. It is partial to the trunks of 

 tree-ferns, and seems, as Mr. Jenman notes, to pi'efer 

 Cyathca elegans, Hew., which has a stem covered with 

 prickles and fibres, affording the creeping rootstock the 

 hold and the nourishment it requires. Trichomanes 

 scandens, L., again, though its fronds also hang down, 

 has not the slender footstalk of those others ; it is much 

 stiffer and stronger, and the multifid fronds, a foot long, 

 are firmer in texture, so that they merely droop, instead of 

 being completely pendent. The colour is a golden green, 

 and it is very beautiful as it is seen climbing up the trunk 

 of a tree-fern, the fronds standing out at regular intervals. 

 Like the last, it prefers a lower elevation, and is mostly, if 

 not always, found on the same Cyathea elegans. I will 

 only glance at one or two of the smaller species, as an 

 enumeration and description of each of them would be 

 tedious to those who have not seen them growing in their 

 native home, however much one might like to linger over 

 them, and recall the scenes in which they were first 

 observed. Among the small ones there that grow at a 

 height of 5000 ft., one is sure to notice Hymenophyllum 



