292 CHARACTERS OF TRIBES AND GENERA. 



OBS. The latter species is a noble Fern. A plant 

 received from Jamaica, and cultivated at Kew, attained in 

 1864 a stout caudex, nearly a foot in height, producing 

 large, spreading, firm fronds, upwards of 10 feet long, 

 with stipes at least 4 inches in circumference, thickly beset 

 with muricate prickles. The large size and different 

 aspect of this species from its congeners, when viewed 

 with its stout arboroid caudex, seems sufficient to render it 

 worthy of being ranked as a distinct genus. 



166. LONCHITIS, Linn. (1737). 

 Hook. Sp. Fit. 



Vernation fasciculate, erect, subarboroid, laniferous. 

 Fronds bi-tripinnate, 2 to 6 feet long, the ultimate pinnae 

 sinuouse-pinnatifid. Primary veins costseform, pinnate ; 

 venules anastomosing, forming irregular hexagonoid areoles. 

 Sporangiferous receptacles transverse, on the apices of 4 to 5 

 venules, converging on the sinus of the lobes, forming an 

 arcuate sorus on each sinus. Indusium linear. 



Type. Lonchitis aurita, Linn. 



Illust. Hook, and Bauer, Gen. Fil., t. 68 A.; Schott. 

 Gen. Fil., t. 30 ; Moore Ind. Fil., p. 31 B. ; J. Sm. 

 Ferns, Brit, and For., f. 99 ; Hook. Syn. Fil., t. 2, 

 fig. 23. 



OBS. :This genus was founded by Linnaeus on tab. 71 of 

 Plumier's Filices, which is represented as having an arcu- 

 leate stipes, but as no modern specimens of Lonchitis have 

 been observed with that character I am inclined to con- 

 sider it a mistake of the artist, the other parts of the figure 

 agreeing with the species described by Hooker as L. Lin- 

 deniana, a native of Venezuela, Plumier's figure being 

 derived from a Martinique plant. 



