SPECIES FILICUM. 



Oiu). L — FILICES.* 



Capsules (Sporangia) sessile or pedicellate, free, rarely 

 connate, one-celled, bursting variously, and various in ti^\- 

 ture, Irequcntl}' surrounded by a more or It^ss complete elas- 

 tic rhtfj, generally collected in definite clusters [sori), arising 

 from veins on the under side of the leafy portion or frond, or 

 at the margin, more rarely collected into si)ikes or racemes 

 distinct from the frond, naked, or furnished with a ^^eculiar 

 membranaceous scale [htdusinm, inrolncrc) which covers the 

 sori wholly or in part ; or, sometimes the margin is dilated 

 into this membranaceous covering, and is interrupted or C(m- 

 tinuous. Seeds or spornlen generally very small and inimer- 

 ous, varying in form. — Fronds with circinate vernation, plane, 

 herbaceous. Trunk or root- stock perennial, often creej/int/, 

 frequently, in the tropics a fid in the southern hemisphere, 

 arborescent. 



Ferns arc found in almost every part of the globe where vascular 

 vegetation exists at all ; but they chiefly abound in moist and warm 

 climates. Ihey have a ))eculiar habit, by which they are more easily 

 to be recognized than described, differing greatly from all other vege- 

 tables, generally exhibiting the most graceful forms, and varying in 

 size from the liumble Trichomanes or Hymenophyllum to the noble 

 Tree-Ferns ol' the equatorial Forests. 



SuBORD. I. — GLElCHENIACEiE, Br. 



Sori dorsal, naked, subglobose, formed of few, sessile, 

 sometimes immersed capsules, which have a transverse or 

 obliquely transverse, complete, elastic ring, bursting vertically 

 (from the apex). — Tropical ; or extra-tro])ical only in the 

 southern hemisphere, of a harsh and rigid texture, sivtj)le 

 or, generally, with copious, dichotomous branches, and gem- 

 mte in the axils, the ultimate branches pinnatijid. Hook. 

 Gen. Fil. Tab. 39 and 41, A. B. C. 



* Tn this Order will be included Osmundacece and Opliioglossc<c. The 

 work, indeed, is intended to include species of all the genera ligurcd an<l de- 

 scribed in tlic author's ' Genera Filicum,' puhlislicd in one vobune, willi 

 numcroiis coloured plates, many of the drawings of wliicii were executed I>v 

 the late Francis Bauer, Estj. 



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