364 MARATTIACE&. PART n. 



or even three feet above the soil. The barren fronds 

 of the large luxuriant tufts are highly developed, and 

 are from six to nine or even eleven feet high ; the fertile 

 fronds are shorter and fewer in number. The bipinnate 

 character prevails throughout; the primary divisions are 

 opposite, the secondary alternate, and the pinnules are 

 oblong and opposite. The sculptured sporangia have a 

 very rudimentary ring, and, in the fruit-bearing fronds, 

 four or five of the lower pairs of pinnules have the leafy 

 character, while the remainder develop clusters of 

 sporangia in place of pinnules. The sporangia on the 

 fruitful branches are at first pale green, but gradually 

 become reddish brown, hence the name of Flowering 

 fern. The Leptopteris section of the genus Todea, 

 almost peculiar to New Zealand, has beautiful trans- 

 parent fronds, with naked sporangia placed upon the 

 veins, forming very much scattered sori. 



The MAEATTIACE^E may be partly known by their 

 huge globose rhizome projecting above the ground, 

 and rough with the processes from which the leaf-stalks 

 have fallen. This sends out a few large fibrous roots, 

 and consists of cellular tissue abounding in starch, with 

 small bundles of fibro-vascular tissue regularly distri- 

 buted through it. The stipes have a pair of stipule-like 

 organs at their base ; and the sori are either oblong fronds 

 of a double row of sporangia, which in some cases is 

 concrete, . or they are circular with the sporangia an- 

 nularly concrete, or they are connate throughout the 

 fertile portions. These peculiarities respectively dis- 

 tinguish the smaller groups of Marattinese, Kaulfussi- 

 nese, and Danseinese, while the group Marattiacese itself 

 is distinguished from Ophioglossacese by having its sori 

 dorsal, that is, set on the back, or under-surface, of flat 

 leafy fronds. The leaves of Angiopteris evecta are used 



