86 GYMNOGRAMMOID FERNS [CH. 



of the sporophyll, which is its marked feature. More recently this isolated 

 type has been compared with Saffordia, a new genus described by Maxon 

 from the mountains of Lima, Peru: and he has placed them both with 

 Doryopteris. 



The nearer of the two to Doryopteris is Saffordia, which is a small Fern 

 with an ascending stock bearing numerous leaves, the whole being covered 

 by closely appressed imbricate scales. The petiole is purplish brown, and 

 the lamina in general outline deltoid, but pinnately-parted. Its upper surface 

 is smooth and concave, with involute margins, and clearly marked midribs: 

 the lower is densely covered by imbricate scales, which conceal the broad 

 continuous marginal receptacles,with their numerous sporangia. The venation 



Fig. 640. Saffordia indiita Maxon. The lower 

 surface of a basal pinna (pedate), cleared of its 

 scales and sporangia, and showing the continuous 

 marginal receptacle curved convexly upwards, 

 bearing scars of insertion of the sporangia! stalks, 

 only the black main veins are visible, slightly en- 

 larged: from a specimen supplied l)y the Smith- 

 sonian Institute. 



which is sunk in the opaque mesophyll is areolate, without included veinlets: 

 the areolae are mostly hexagonal, as in Doryopteris (Fig. 640). The sorus is 

 of the "mixed" type, the sporangia are globular, with 16 to 18 indurated 

 cells of the annulus, the thickening stopping short of the three-rowed stalk: 

 there is a well-formed, four-celled stomium. The spores are spherical-tetra- 

 hedral, and the spore-output is 48. 



Trachypteris is well figured in Hooker's First Century of Ferns, Plate 

 XXXIII (1854), under the name of Acrostichmu aureo-nitens. It differs from 

 Saffordia in being strongly heterophyllous, the sterile leaf being entire and 

 spathulate: but the fertile leaves are pinnate, with 5-9 pinnae showing a 

 pedate branching. Their undersides are "uniformly clothed with capsules 

 mixed with chaffy scales" (Fig. 641, i, 2). This is a further difference from 

 Saffordia, in which the coenosorus is a relatively narrow band. Here again 

 the venation is reticulate, with hexagonal areolae. Maxon's reference of both 

 of these Ferns to a relation with Doryopteris may be held as correct. The 



