PTERIS. 193 



prickly with compactly placed, slender, white or stramineous, rather long spines, 

 of the same texture as the rachis, while the main rachis is merely rough with 

 close-placed, small, elevated spinous points. It is a very fine and handsome 

 species, with very narrow segments or pinnules. 



60. Pt. (Eupteris) Jamesorii, Hook.; 1-2 or 2^^ feet (per- 

 haps more) high, frond a span to a foot and a half long del- 

 toid subpedate coriaceous glabrous glossy above pinnate, su- 

 perior pinnce simple (undivided small) ^ an inch to an inch 

 long, intermediate and inferior ones lanceolate much acumi- 

 nate sessile or nearly so and again pinnate, lowermost pair bi- 

 pinnate two or three of the lowermost of these pinnules much 

 longer than the rest, ultimate pinnules (and the superior 

 pinnce) oblong-lanceolate subfalcate mucronate singularly 

 decurrent and confluent sterile ones strongly spinuloso-ser- 

 rate, veins sunk on the upper side elevated on the under 

 simple or usually forked, involucres intramarginal on the 

 most perfect specimen continuous from the base to the rau- 

 cronated apex rather broad membranaceous, stipes longer 

 than the frond stramineous rough on the under side as well 

 as the rachises and costa of the pinnules with scattered spines 

 of the same colour and texture as the stipes, costa and even 

 the veins beneath partially chaffy with small deciduous ovate 

 acuminate brown crisped scales. (Tab. CXXXIII. A.) 



Ilal). Andes of Quito, Professor W. Jameson. Ocaila, New Granada, Schlim, 

 n. 330. — No species of Pteris can well be more distinct than this, and yet I find 

 it impossible to give its distinguishing characters in a few words or a few lines. 

 In one of its most remarkable features, the singularly hard and yet usually wavy 

 spines of the under side of the stipes, rachises, and costa, of the s<ame colour and 

 texture as the stipes, it approaches Pt. coriacea, Desv., but it is a smaller and 

 much less compound plant, with very much larger and broader ultimate pinnules, 

 which are from half an inch to an inch long, and a line and a half to two lines 

 wide. The spines however are much less numerous than in Pt. coriacea, espe- 

 cially on the costa of the pinnules, but they are there accompanied by scattered, 

 curled, brown scales, of which there is no trace in that species. The strong spi- 

 nulose serratures of the sterile portions of the plant entirely disappear in the 

 fertile pinnules, and these have the involucres occupying the whole length of the 

 margin, and rather a broad edge, formed of the substance of the frond ; in other 

 words, the sori are distinctly intramarginal. I have never received this plant, 

 save from Professor Jameson, but from two different stations, and in different 

 states of perfection, showing, by the presence of the essential characters in each, 

 that the species may be considered a good one. 



61. Pt. (Eupteris) muricata, Hook.; caudex?, frond 20 

 inches (and more?) long ovate acuminate coriaceous very 

 rigid bi- below tri-pinnate, pinnee petiolate opposite or nearly 

 so in distant pairs primary superior ones and secondary in- 

 ferior ones lanceolate long-acuminate into a serrated point, 

 pinnules numerous compact confluent at the base linear- 



