195 



at the apex, segments often bipartite or l)ifid unequal sub- 

 setaceo-acuniinate often incurved, veins thick iniiuersed sin- 

 gle or once forked in the bih)bcd or ])ipartite pinnules, sori 

 oblong solitary upon the inside of one of the branches of the 

 fork opening towards the opposite one (never towards the 

 margin), involucres membranaceous brown, rachis as well as 

 the stipes herbaceous. — Hook. 2nd Cent, of Ferns, t. 32. 



Ilab. Ecuador, growing on trees and shrubs in the forests of Archedona, Qui- 

 tinian Andes, Jameson, n. 783. — One of the most distinct of all Asplenia: the 

 caudices of our specimens are a foot and more long, with numerous minute, 

 nearly sessile fronds, scarcely two inches long, with patenti-divaricated pinnules 

 of a very peculiar shape, rather broad, cuueale, often bifid or bipartite, the 

 otherwise truncated apices cvit into uiiecinal,brnad, subulate, and almost cuspidate 

 segments, which are more or less incurverl. The veins are unusually tliii k lor so 

 minute a plant, generally forked, one braiu'h bearing a sonis which opens towards 

 the centre or opposite branch, never approaching the margin, as in the Dareastrum- 

 section. 



186. A. (Euasplenium) Montevcrdense, Hook.; caudex a 

 small knot coj)iously tibroso-radicose, stipites coespitose 1-2 

 inches long lurid-castaneous subflexuose, fronds 4 to 6 inches 

 or rather more long broad-lanceolate tapering at the base mem- 

 branaceous when young and pale green firm and subcoiia- 

 ceous dark green in age tripinnate, pinniB all petiolate pri- 

 mary ones patent 1-1 ^ inches long oblong-ovate obtuse se- 

 condary ones broad cuneate lowest ones only again pinnated 

 with three or four petiolated piiniules wliich are also cuneate 

 rarely entire generally bifid with the segments short acute 

 and often a little incurved (towards each other or subscor- 

 pioid) or trifid with the segments short unequal, all very 

 acute uppermost ones quite entire oblong or obovate con- 

 fluent, veins solitary central, forking as the pinnules divide 

 clubbed at the apex, sori solitary on a lobe or on an undi- 

 vided pinnule subdareoid at first small at length enlarging 

 and becoming a convex oval mass of capsules occupying 

 nearly the entire lobe or pinnule and quite concealing the 

 small linear-oblong yellowish-green very membranaceous* in- 

 volucres, rachises all green slender compressed scarcely mar- 

 gined. — Hook, in 2nd Cent, of Ferns, /. 41. 



Ilab. Under overhanging rocks near Mount Verde, on the eastern side of Cuba, 

 185'J, C. Wright, n. 1029. — Ditticult as are Ferns in general, especially where the 

 species are numerous, as in the genus now under consideration, to be described 

 in words, those I think are the most so which are very compound, and have 

 rather narrow pinnules or segments, with only a solitary nerve, and many of 

 which may be almost as correctly said to be divided in a pinnatilid as jiinnated 

 manner, and which are more or less allied to the Z^arca-group. If 1 fail in my 



