42 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



SPECIES L-GYMNOGRAMMA LEPTOPHYLLA. Besvaux. 



Plate 1843. 



Babenh. Crypt. Vase. Europ. Exsicc. No. 81. 



Grarnmitis leptophylla, Swartz & Willd. Spec. Plant. Vol. V. p. 143. Gren. & Godr. 



El. de Fr. Vol. III. p. 629. 

 Polypodium leptopliyllum, Linn. Spec. Plant. 1553. 



Caudex minute, annual, or rather biennial, with filiform scales. 

 Fronds of two forms on the same plant. Fertile frond, with the stipes 

 usually as long as or longer than the lamina, maroon-coloured at 

 the base, at first with a few capillary scales, ultimately naked. 

 Lamina pale yellowish-green, membranous, glabrous when full grown, 

 without scales or powder beneath, oblong or lanceolate-oblong, abrupt 

 at the base, acuminate, bipinnate ; pinnules obovate, pinnatisect or 

 flabellately lobed, wedge-shaped or inversely deltoid at the base, 

 with the lobes once or twice dichotomous ; ultimate divisions very 

 short and rounded. Sori oblong, ultimately confluent, and covering 

 the upper half of the lobes of the pinnules. Sterile frond smaller, 

 and with a much shorter stipes than the fertile frond. Lamina 

 thinner than in the fertile frond, ovate, pinnate ; pinnae shortly 

 stalked, larger than in the fertile frond, flabellate, dichotomously 

 incised, in luxuriant plants not unfrequently bearing sori, which are 

 rounder than in the fertile frond, and not confluent. Fertile fronds 

 deciduous ; barren ones fugacious. 



On banks and walls facing the south or south-west in Jersey. The 

 first notice of it was published in the ' Gardeners' Chronicle,' Jan. 

 29th, 1853, p. 69, by " J. M.," who appears to have found it not only 

 in that year, but in the previous one in Jersey. Mr. Newman, in 

 March 1853, states that he learned from his friend Mr. Henry Hagen, 

 in the winter of 1852-3, that a lady had discovered Gymnograrnme 

 leptophylla in one of the Channel Islands, and on receipt of a 

 specimen he announced the fact in the ' Phytologist,' 1853, p. 914. 

 As a result of communications received May, 1853, he intimated that 

 it was reported from Jersey that Gymnograrnme was widely dis- 

 tributed in the island, preferring localities in which the moistened soil 

 induces the growth of Marchantia, in company with which plant it 

 appears particularly to flourish ; it also occurs, but not so frequently, 

 growing in moss. The principal localities are near Le Haule, near 

 St. Aubin's, and in several places near St. Laurence. On the 25th of 

 June, .1853, I gathered the Gymnograrnme on the right-hand side of 



