LinruEan Society. 39 



even in reference to propagation, it being not at all unfrequent to 

 meet with extraordinary means of development in connexion with it, 

 viz. adventitious buds ; and in ferns particularly those points of the 

 veins which serve in normal cases as the receptacles to which the 

 sori are attached, in other cases become ^'iviparous and develope 

 gemmae from which new plants are produced. He believes, more- 

 over, that characters derived from this system of vessels, when taken 

 in connexion with the fructification, though sometimes forming 

 groups of considerable extent, and occasionally separating species 

 having some external similarity, nevertheless in no case bring to- 

 gether obviously ill-assorted species, but rather associate those of 

 obvious similarity and affinity. 



For these reasons he is not prepared to follow Sir W. Hooker in 

 setting aside the genus Hewardia of Mr. John Smith. He regards 

 the difference as broad and important between the accidental anasto- 

 mosing of contiguous venules which occurs in some species of Adi- 

 antum, and a constant and complete reticulation, such as exists in 

 the genus Hewardia ; and he concludes that that genus should be 

 retained. This conclusion he finds unexpectedly confirmed in Fee's 

 ' Genera Filicum,' just received in this country, where the same view 

 is taken of the species of Hewardia as that which he had previously 

 adopted, and an additional species {H. serrata) mentioned of which 

 he had no previous knowledge. 



The species enumerated by the author are arranged as follows : — 



* Sori contjnui ; venae primarise costiformes. 



1. Hewardia adiantoides, J. Smith = Adiantum Hewardia, Kunze. 



2. H. dolosa, Fee = Ad. dolosum, Kunze. 



•* Sori interrupti ; venae uniformes. 



3. H. Le Prieurei, Fee = Ad. Le Prieurei, Hook. 



4. H. serrata, Fee. 



Mr. Moore regards H. Wilsotii, Fee (Adiantum, Hook.), as a true 

 Adiantum ; as also Sir W. Hooker's variety y. of Ad. lucidum. In 

 both these the dichotomous veins occasionally anastomose ; but there 

 is nothing like complete reticulation, and the union, when it does 

 occur, is evidently accidental. 



If the name Hewardia be retained, as the author proposes, for the 

 genus of ferns to which it was first applied, he suggests that of 

 Isophysis for the Melanthaceous genus, subsequently so called by 

 Sir William Hooker in his ' Icones Plantarum,' t. 858, the species 

 retaining the name of Tasmanica. 



The same rule induces the author, in the second case referred to, 

 to separate from the genus Deparia, Hook., a species having a truly 

 and constantly reticulated venation, that of Deparia being uniformly 

 free. The species in question is Deparia Moorii from New Caledonia, 

 named by Sir Wm. Hooker after Mr. C. Moore, the Director of the 

 Sydney Botanic Garden, by whom it was discovered ; and the fol- 

 lowing arc its generic characters : — 



