2 9 



lucres quite terete, very membranaceous, tender and brittle, often 

 bursting irregularly." So far as I can judge, this is purely gratui- 

 tous on Hooker's part, and was entirely foreign to the original idea 

 of Roth. In conformity with that idea, no species possessing 

 habitually straight sori has any place in the genus. Every one of 

 the species and varieties which he names has more or less arcuate 

 sori ; and Hooker's unfairness was accentuated when he placed 

 A. fontamim under Eu-Asplenium, but described the involucres as 

 "very small, athytioid" thus showing that he recognized the 

 athyrioid involucre as a valid type. 



In conclusion, there are two or three points which I would like 

 to bring out and make prominent. First is the fact that every one 

 of the species which Roth originally put into his genus Athyrium 

 was taken from the Linnaean genus Polypodium, and was never 

 included by Linnaeus in the genus Asplenium, in fact was not con- 

 sidered as having any relation to Asplenium. 



Secondly, Presl in his remarks on the tribe Aspidiae and the 

 manner in which it was broken up by different authors, said : 

 " First came Roth, who in the third volume (1800) of the Flora 

 Germanica divided the indusiate Polypodia of Linnaeus into more 

 genera, viz. into Athyrium, Polystichum, and Cyathea. The dis- 

 tinguished Bernhardi drove Athyrium into Asplenium (the word 

 Presl uses is repulsit, which is much stronger than removit would 

 have been), accepted Polystichum, but changed Cyathea into Cys- 

 topteris, on account of another genus so called by Smith." So we 

 see that until Bernhardi "drove" Athyrium into Asplenium, ' the 

 species which composed Athyrium had no relation with Asplenium 

 whatever. 



Thirdly, Roth himself, as I have already shown, distinctly dif- 

 ferentiated Athyrium from both Polystichum, which was his own 

 genus, and the Asplenium of Linnaeus, and asserted that the char- 

 acter of its sorus and indusium entitled it to be separated from these 

 genera and to have a genus of its own. 



These points seem to me not only to establish Athyrium as a 

 \-alid genus, but to separate it wholly from any of the other genera 

 with which it has hitherto been associated. 



