A.sl>I.^:M^I.^r, § euassi'Lemum. 11,'i 



Asplen. p. 101. A. Ncogranatense, Fe.e^ ^me Mem. Foug. 

 p. 47. t- 14. /. 1 {piu)i(e few, much elongated sometimes 

 nearly afoot long). A. Kepplerianuni, Kze. in Linniea, x.\i. 

 p. 216. A. salicifolium, var. Kcpplerianum, Metten. As- 

 plen. p. 101. 



Hab. Tropical America, Martinique, Plunder. West Indies, probably general : 

 but I bave only received it from Cuba, Z,//( J<?«, n. 1891 ; C. ]Vri(jht,n. 8ti. New 

 firanada, Schlim, n. C03 and 492 (A. Neogranatense, Fee). Venezuela, Funck, n. 

 OH-l. Surinam, llo^tmann, n. 879, Kcppler. Panama, Seemann, n. 3G1. ParA, 

 Spruce, n. 37. Rio, Lady Calcott (with one or more lobes at the base of the 

 lower pinnse). I'eru, PiBppig. — Few species of Aspleniuin are less understood 

 than the present. In books the name has been given to four or five different 

 Ferns, and in herbaria to many more. Linnaius and Swartz and Willdenow have 

 done little more than refer to Plumier's figure as the authority for the Linnajau 

 species ; and that figure represents the piunai too strongly -serrated, and the 

 superior base too much auricled for any species known to us ; hence the larger 

 states of Aspl. auriculatum, Sw. (A. falx, Desv.), have been very generally taken 

 for it. Kunze observes in Linnaea (vol. ix. p. 64), " Laitamur verani plantain 

 Phimerianani, ut videtur rarissimam et paucis notam, restituere posse," aiui by 

 his brief but accurate descriptioti, he has, we think, led to a more correct know- 

 ledge of it. The caudex is remarkable for the dense rusty downy covering, and 

 for the persistent remains of the old siipites, from which the outer coat has 

 broken away, while the wiry bundles of vessels {fasciculi vasoruni) remain like 

 coarse lu)rsehair, springing from the caudex. I have seen no distinct auricle on 

 any of my numerous specimens, and so nearly entire are the margins, that the 

 Aspl. intpgerrimum cannot stand even as a var. of salicifoUum ; to be entire in 

 the most common state of the i)inu8e. I have never seen specimens from Jamaica, 

 though Swartz and Willdenow quote that locality; nor from Bourbon, perhaps 

 erroneously so given by Swartz. The much more unequally sided pinnai of A. 

 aaricidatum, and the strong serratures and large auricles of a semicordate form, 

 produced towards the rachis and often overlapping it (crested, as it were), readily 

 <iistinguish that species from A. salicifoUum. 



64. A. (Ev;asplenium) Wrightii, Eat. ; stipes a foot and 

 more long stout paleaceous below with thin membrana- 

 ceous subulate scales, fronds 2h feet long ovato-lanceolate 

 subcoriaceo-meml)ranaceous dark-green paler beneath multi- 

 pinnate, pinnoe sj^reading 4-6 inches long lower ones remote 

 upper ones gradually diminishing in size lanceolate more or 

 less falcate much and gradually acuminate the base obliquely 

 cuneate and suddenly attenuated into a short winged petiole 

 superior (rarely the inferior one) with a deep broad ol)ovate 

 lobe, the rest of the margin pinnatifid cut into shallower 

 obtuse lobes gradually terminating in a deeply inciso-serrated 

 acumen, all the k)bes strongly and sharply serrated at their 

 obtuse apices, ultimate pinnae small obovate serrated con- 

 fluent so as to form a winged rachis, veins distant, once or 

 twice forked oblique the veiidets terminating within the 

 margin and clavate, sori linear intermediate between the 



VOL. III. <i 



