GO BLECIINUM. 



is a prior acuminatum of M. Fcc. I th'nk that of C. Gay is the one which shoiihl 

 l)e retained. 



29. Bl. doodioides. Hook. ; caudex . . . ?, frond 2 feet high 

 4 inches broad lanceolate coriaceo-membranaceous pinnate, 

 pinnic numerous sul)appro.\'imate horizontal from a broad 

 sessile and adnate base linear acuminate entire or very ob- 

 scurely subsinuate slightly falcate oj)aque, upper half fertile 

 with contracted pinuic (narrow-linear), lower half sterile very 

 much abbreviated towards the base, veins of the sterile pin- 

 n;c forked and quite free with small j)oints where they termi- 

 nate at the margin, the lowest vein of the forks in the fertile 

 pinucC sends out a vein which unites with the nearest veinlet 

 transversely near but not close to the costa, on this chain of 

 transverse veins the involucre has its origin and the space 

 between this and the costa is eventually occupied by the 

 sori which are continuous except while very young. (Taij. 

 CLlll.)— Hook, in Fl. Bor. Am. \\. p. 263. 



Ilah. Interior of N.W. America (probahly up Eraser's River), Dow/las. — This 

 is a very remarkable Fern, with cjuite the habit oi Blechnum, andwitli the sori of 

 Blechiium, and the sterile piniix have the venation of tliat getins, l)ut the fertile 

 pinnic have an anastomosing vein connecting the fascicles of veins transversely, 

 giving origin to the involucre and sorus. I have never seen other specimens than 

 the two very perfect fronds from which the characters were drawn up in the 

 ' Flora Boreali-Americana,' and I here transcribe the brief remarks. " Of this 

 jjlant two specimens were sent to mo by the late Dr. Gairdner (then resident at 

 Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia), which were gathered in the interior by Mr. 

 Douglas, but whether in the Hudson's Bay territories, or, as is possible, in North 

 California, 1 am uncertain : 1 am disposed to believe, in the former country, be- 

 cause there is nothing of the kind in Mr. Douglas's Californian Herbarium. It 

 seems a very distinct species, almost combining the characters of Woodioardia or 

 Doodia with those of Blechnum. The veins are oblique with regard to the costa, 

 forked, and not at all anastomosing in the sterile pinnae ; but when the fructifica- 

 tion appears, the lower branch of a vein (or of a fascicle of veins) anastomoses 

 with the vein of the next fascicle, and w itliin that vein (ne.vt the costa) the sorus 

 is formed. In the lower portion of the fertile pinnse, the sori are frequently short 

 and stand unconnected and more or less distant, as in Woodwardia, but generally 

 they form a continuous line by the union of the adjacent sori. The stipes, as 

 far as can be judged from my specimens, is short, and of a dark colour; the 

 upper (fertile) pinna; are very narrow, so that the sori there appear to occupy 

 nearly the whole under surface, as in Lomaria Spicant, L.," — from which tlie 

 larger size of the fronds and the truly costal sori, at a considerable distance from 

 the margin, on the unchanged frond, giving the Blechnoid character, would seena 

 to distinguish it ; nevertheless, seeing that Lomaria Spicant (or Blechnum borcale) 

 is the only Loniarioid plant in so northern a latitude, and that the west coast of 

 British Columbia exhibits a remarkable form of that plant (our 7 clmif/ata, — 

 Lomaria crenata, Pr.), the present may possibly be a still more peculiar form 

 of that species. Future specimens from British Columbia, now that British bo- 

 tanists arc there, can alone settle the point. 



