282 PLATYCERIUM. 



167. A. (Photinopteris) drynarioides, Hook. ; caudex ?, 

 stipites very short thick clothed at the base with long slen- 

 der linear fringed tawny silky sessile scales, fronds 2-4 or 

 more feet long 8-12 inches broad coriaceous glabrous glossy 

 broad-lanceolate; sterile fronds acuminate uniformly and 

 deeply pinnatifid sinuato-lobate at the narrowed base, the 

 whole when dry easily becomes detached from the rachis 

 where the texture ispellucido-membranaceous, segments ap- 

 proximate 5-8 inches long 1 inch and more broad near the 

 middle oblong acuminate subfalcate, lower ones much shorter 

 and broader very obtuse, costa deeply furrowed above very 

 prominent and semiterete beneath, venation as in the prece- 

 ding species; the fertile fronds have a remarkable prolonga- 

 tion of the rachis which is pinnated into numerous distant 

 sessile linear-elongated pinnee 6-8-12-14 inches long dilated 

 at the very base, wholly soriferous beneath. 



Hab. Malayan Peninsula, Sir Wni. Norris. Salomon's Islands, South Pacific, 

 Milne. — Though it cannot be said that the segments are jointed upon the costa 

 or rachis, as the pinna: are in the preceding species, yet the whole of the frondose 

 portion separates (at least when dry) most readily from the costa; so deciduous, 

 indeed, that it seems hardly possible to preserve the fronds entire. 



2. Platycerium, Desv. 



(Hook. Gen. Fil. tab. LXX. B. Acrostichum, Siv. 

 Neuroplatyceros, Pluken. Fee. Alcicornium, Gaudich.) 



Sori occupying a portion only of the under side of the 

 disk of the fertile fronds and forming large, often reniform 

 patches, frequently at the sinuses of the primary lobes. 

 Fronds ample, dimorphous, epiphytal, subdistichous, coria- 

 ceous, increasing, as it were, by new annual fronds super- 

 imposed upon the old, withered and dead ones; one on each 

 side ; from between these two fertile, subalcicorniform, fer- 

 tile fronds arise. — Venation varied, copious, prominent ; costce 

 numerous, subflabellate ; the rest of the veins forming large 

 oblong areoles, usually with free, included, simple or forked 

 veinlets. 



1. P. alcicorne, Desv.; sterile fronds spreading sessile 

 subreniform convex downy when young sinuato-lobate at the 

 margin eventually brown and persistent, primary veins dicho- 

 tomously radiating, secondary uniformly reticulated forming 



