178 CHARACTERS OF TRIBES AND GENERA. 



Sp. P. linearis, Pr. ; P. graminifolia, Pr. (Tcenitis grami- 

 nifolia, Hook. Exot. Fil., t. 77) ; P. seminuda, /. Sm. 

 (Grammitis seminuda, Willd. ; P. pumila, Pr.) ; P. furcata, 

 J. Sm. (Grammitis, Sw. ; Monogramma furcata, Desv. ; 

 Cocnlidium graminoides, Kaulf., Schott. Gen. Fil., t. 19). 



Small grass-like Ferns, growing in tufts ; natives of 

 the West Indies and Tropical America. 



86 HECISTOPTERIS, J. Sm. (1842). 

 Gymnogramma sp., Hook. Sp. Fil. 



Vernation sarmentose, slender, squamose, producing the 

 fronds in fascicles. Fronds simple, linear, cuneiform, forked 

 or more divided (palmoid), half an inch to 2 inches high, 

 plane. Veins simply or flabellately forked, radiating from 

 an evanescent costa ; venules terminating in the lacinas, 

 sporangiferous nearly their whole length, forming linear, 

 simple or forked sori. 



Type. Gymnogramma pumila, Spreng. 



Illust. Fee, Gen Fil., t. 16 B. ; Hook., Seed. Cent, of 

 Ferns, t. 8. 



OBS. This small Fern was originally described by 

 Sprengel as a species of Gymnogramma ; but as it did not 

 appear to me to form any natural alliance with any of the 

 groups of species of that genus, I, therefore, in the Journal 

 of Botany for 1842, deemed it best to characterise it as a 

 distinct genus. The fronds in some states being simple, 

 and bearing only one sorus, seems to indicate its relation- 

 ship with Monogramma and Pleurogramma. 



Sp. H. pumila, /. 8m. (Gymnogramma, Spreng., Kze. 

 Analec.,t.S,f.l). 



West Indies, Central America, Guiana, Brazil. 



