302 CHARACTERS OF TRIBES AND GENERA. 



OBS. Of the twenty -two species here enumerated 

 eighteen have come under my notice in a living state, 

 several of which are recorded as synonyms in the " Synop- 

 sis Filicum," but my observations on the living plants 

 satisfy me that the above are sufficiently distinct to be 

 viewed as species. The synonymy of many of the species 

 is, however, most difficult to unravel, for instance, B. 

 orientals has no less than thirty-eight, and B. occidentale 

 nearly twenty synonyms. 



Blechnum melanopsis of the " Species Filicum " is described 

 as being a pinnate species, about a span in length, similar 

 in appearance to a young frond of B. orientale, but differing 

 from Blechnum in having reticulate venation, which Mr. 

 Moore has thought proper to adopt as characteristic of a 

 distinct genus, which he names Blechnidium. The descrip- 

 tion of this Fern is taken from a solitary frond gathered in 

 Khasya, which probably may turn out to be a young state 

 of a Woodwardia. 



171. LOMARIA, Willd. (1809). 

 Hook. Sp. Fil. ; Blechnum sp. auct. ; Stegania, B. Br. 



Vernation uniserial, sarmentose or fasciculate, erect, cses- 

 pitose or subarborescent. Fronds simple, pinnatifid, or pin- 

 nate, rarely bipinnatifid, 1 to 3 feet high, the fertile always 

 contracted. Feins (of the sterile frond) forked ; venules 

 free, their apices usually clavate ; fertile segments rachi- 

 form, veins obsolete, or more or less evident, and by their 

 contiguity forming a broad, transverse, continuous, sporan- 

 giferous receptacle, the sporangia becoming confluent over 

 the whole disc of the segment. Indusium linear, sub-intra- 

 marginal, vaulted, and involute, the margin oppositely 



