26 LOMARIA. 



Osmunda procera of New Zealand. Indeed, with all its variations (and some of 

 them are remarkable enough, but rather of a kind to come under the term of a 

 sport, or freak, of Nature, than to be considered as organically distinct), I scarcely 

 know one species of the genus Lomaria which runs so little into doubtful forms 

 as tliis, provided the student has good specimens under investigation ; and there 

 cannot be a question but that the extended geographical distribution of this plant 

 is the cause of so many supposed species being derived from it. Botanists have 

 found it difficult to believe that a new Fern, first detected in a newly discovered 

 country, as New Zealand then was, with its many peculiarities of vegetation, 

 should be afterwards discovered in our and other remote European colonies of 

 the West Indies, the Cape of Good Hope, Cliili, etc. etc., and I have myself fallen 

 into this error in the adoption of my L. Gilliesii of Mendoza, though I did not 

 fail to notice its close affinity with L. procera, which at that time I only possessed 

 from New Holland. Yet this species has not only been retained by comi)etent 

 judges, but has been made the ground of a new genus {Orthoyramme, Pr.). Of 

 some of tbe older recorded names, and whicli still continue as species in the lists 

 of the most correct Pteridologists, L. lineata (W. Indian) and L. Chilensis and 

 L. Capensis, Dr. Hooker (Fl. N. Zeal. 1. c.) has already declared he could not dis- 

 tinguish from tTwe procera. I think indeed that our figure of L. Chilensis, given 

 in the Gen. Filicum, will satisfy any one that there is nothing dift'erent in tliat 

 plant from L. procera ; and if Labillardiure's excellent figure (1. c.) of L. procera, 

 and Schlechtendahl's equally faithful one of L. Capensis, be compared, no diffe- 

 rence, even as a marked variety, can be perceived. Distinctions which some bo- 

 tanists are disposed to rely upon, viz. the approximation of the sori to the costa 

 or the margin, are not only variable, but are much affected by the age of the fertile 

 frond. Of L. Capensis the accurate Mettenius says, " Sori medii inter costam 

 et marginem, vel ad marginem approximati ;" and even that portion of the pinna 

 which is extra-sorous and very evident in a young state, is much obliterated in 

 age, so that, on looking at the back of the pinna, when the involucre is forced 

 back by the capsnles, three longitudinal slightly elevated lines will be perceived, 

 the centre one occasioned by the i)resence of the costa, the lateral ones by the 

 nearly obliterated margin of the frond, reduced to a mere elevated stria. 



The only Lomaria which I have here referred to L. procera, of the correctness 

 of whicli I entertain any reasonable doubt, is the L. spectabilis, Liebra. {L. longi- 

 folia, Schlecht. in Mart, and Gal. Fil. Mcx., and Fee, not Kaulf), of which I have 

 authentic specimens under both names. It is from Mexico and Guatemala, and 

 is described by Liebmann, but he omits to notice a very peculiar character. On 

 some, but not all, of his and other specimens, the lower pinnae, particularly of 

 the sterile fronds, are ratber long-petioled ; and where this petiole joins the 

 rachis, is a remarkable, rather large and distinct, black, glossy gland, exactly re- 

 sembling, except in colour, a very convex scale-insect, such as is found to be so 

 troublesome in our Fern-houses. Were it more constant, accompanied as it is 

 with long and rather narrow obsoletely dentate sterile pinna^ sometimes quite 

 entire (tliough Liebmann says, "argute serratae"), I should almost have been 

 disposed to consider this a distinct species. But this gland has been alluded to 

 by Schlechtendahl (and, as far as I know, by no one else), on the West Indian 

 L. striata, Willd. (L. jirocera. Nobis), under his Blechnum (Lomaria) Capense. 

 " Huic {L.Capensi) proxima species est Lomaria striata, W., quae venis supra 

 impressis, subtus prominentibus, callosaque protuberantia ad basin internam cu- 

 jusve pinna; statim dignoscitur." I may observe that a somewhat analogous 

 gland exists on Lomaria (Plagiogyria) pycnophylla, our n. 27, where, though not 

 invariably present, it is much more constant than in Liebmann' s L, spectabilis. 



28. L. Magellanica, Desv. ; caudex erect stout almost ar- 

 boreous 1-2 feet high terminated with a dense mass of very 

 lonof falcate dark-brown narrow-linear subulate scales with a 



