136 CHARACTERS OF TRIBES AND GENERA. 



Poecilopteris, but differs in its erect fasciculate vernation, 

 and in the fertile segments being involute. 



Sp. S. aurita (Blwne Fil. Jav., t. 1) (v v.) (Polybotrya 

 cicutaria, BL). 



52. PCECILOPTERIS, Presl. (1836). 

 Acrostichum sp. auct., Hook. Sp. Fil. 



Vernation uniserial, sarmentum short or elongated. 

 Fronds contiguous or distant, pinnate, 1 to 3 feet long, 

 bulbiferous. Primary veins costaDform, pinnate, venules 

 arcuately or angularly anastomosing, producing on their 

 exterior sides or angles one or more free or anastomosing 

 veinlets, forming unequal areoles. Fertile pinnoe some- 

 times scarcely contracted, the venules then distinctly 

 eporangiferous. 



Type. Acrostichum punctulatum Linn. 



Illus. Hook, and Bauer, Gen. Fil., t. 75, B ; Moore Ind. 

 Fil., p. 7 ; J. Sm. Ferns Brit, and For., fig. 42. 



OBS. The various and very different states exhibited by 

 this genus has led not only to the forming of many species, 

 but also to genera having been founded on different states 

 of the same species, chiefly on the variations of the fertile 

 frond being more or less contracted. 



In some fronds of the same species the contraction of 

 the fertile pinnse is often very little, the venation is then 

 more or less evident, and are then distinctly sporangiferous, 

 forming linear anastomosing sori ; this state constitutes 

 the genus Jenkinsia of Hooker, figured and described in 

 Hook, and Bauer's Gen. Fil., t. 75, B, which in some cases 

 scarcely differs from Meniscium or Stegnogramma, and with 

 which Pcecilopteris agrees in habit, differing only in the 

 veins of the sterile fronds being more compound anastomosed 



