154 



ONOCLEOID FERNS 



[CH. 



Pecopterid venation (Fig. 678, B). The sporophylls are also simply pinnate, 

 but the segments are narrow, and their margins turn strongly downwards 

 so as to protect the sori. They closely resemble those of Bkchmni capense 

 (L.) Schlecht, a significant comparison : for several species now placed under 

 Blechnuin have from time to time been ranked under Striithiopteris (= Mat- 

 teuccid). The importance of this fact will appear later. The massive stock is 

 solid, and does not present that basket-structure, due to deep axillary pockets, 

 described for M. striithiopteris and other Ferns by Gwynne-Vaughan (Fig. 

 679). It is traversed bya dictyostelewith large meshes, from the lower margins 



Fig. 679. Mattciucia striithiopteris. Transverse 

 sections of the erect stock. The epidermal 

 pockets are left blank, the ground tissue of the 

 stem is dotted, the meristeles of the stem are 

 black,and the leaf-traces cross-hatched. Except 

 for the pockets the structure oi Metteiiccia orieii- 

 talis is the same. (After Gwynne-Vaughan.) 



Fig. 680. Mattciuxia orientalis. Venation 

 of the fertile pinna: the dots on the veins 

 indicate the receptacles, here seen to be in 

 straight rows, one on either side of the 

 mid-rib. The over-arching margins of the 

 pinna have been removed. (Enlarged.) 



of which two large strap-shaped strands pass to each subtending leaf Scle- 

 renchyma is absent from it, in contrast to the Cyatheaceae. The whole vascular 

 structure is strikingly like that of Dryopteris oreopteris (Ehrh.) Maxon. 



The general character of the fertile leaf of M. orientalis is like that of the 

 Ostrich Fern, and in both the venation of the fertile pinnae is on the same 

 plan as that of the sterile, but the branch-veins are fewer, 5-6 on the 

 fertile as against 10-12 on the sterile. Each branch may bear a single 

 sorus, as in M. striithiopteris (Fig. ^y"^, D): but whereas there the sori of the 

 lower branch-veins lie nearer to the mid-rib than those of the upper, in 

 M. orientalis they are all seated at an equal distance from it, forming 

 regular intramarginal rows (Fig. 680). This detail is matched in Blcchnuni 



