Filices. | FLORA OF TASMANTA. 139 
The true C. tenuifolia is a very widely diffused tropical Fern, of which Australian and New Zealand plants 
are smaller, and have.often a more contracted frond than the Indian, and have hence been made into another 
species (C. Sieberi). The immense suite of specimens preserved in the Hookerian Herbarium, however, shows that 
all are one and the same plant, from which the C. Preissiana of the Swan River has been distinguished by the pre- 
sence of a few hairs towards the base of the stipes, a character I find present and absent in different fronds of the 
same specimen.—Rhizome very stout, thickly covered with silky, long scales. Stipes tufted, stout, glossy, red- 
brown, quite glabrous, or with a few spreading hairs towards the base. Fronds 3 inches to a span or a foot long, 
narrow-ovate or oblong, rarely deltoid, much contracted from the erect pinne, tripinnate. Pinne distant; secon- 
dary scattered. Pinnules perfectly glabrous, few and small, coriaceous, 3-5 lines long, yellow-green, linear-oblong, 
blunt, crenate, their margins very revolute, lobed or pinnatifid; margins of all the lobes reflexed, forming a conti- 
nuous, coriaceous, crenate involucre, with membranous edges. Capsules very numerous and prominent, often cover- 
ing the pinnules. Rachis red-brown, shining, quite smooth.—This is anything but a handsome Fern in colour, 
form, or texture, always looking starved and dry, the small, narrow, scattered pinnules, with revolute margins, 
bearing a small proportion in size to the stout stipes and rachis. The pinnules often appear as a mass of fructifi- 
cation. In some specimens the primary pinne ate reduced to small crumpled lobes, not half an inch long. 
Gen. XI. PTERIS, Br. 
Sori lineares, marginales, continui; capsulis sinu involucri insertis.  Zmvolucrum marginale, con- 
tinuum, scariosum, intus liberum. 
One of the largest and most extensively distributed groups of Ferns, which has been divided (on so many 
and various grounds) into so many genera, that, were they adopted here, one might perhaps be found for each 
Tasmanian species. Such dismemberments of genera, though extremely useful to the skilled botanist when work- 
ing upon a multitude of species from all parts of the world, are, when not absolutely necessary, highly inconvenient 
for local Floras, rendering these impracticable to the student. I have therefore, in this case, adopted the old genus, 
as defined in Brown's * Prodromus Florz Australis, and introduced as sections those of the new that are natural. 
Pteris, thus characterized, contains all those Ferns whose sori run continuously, or nearly so, along the edge of 
the whole pinnule, and are covered with a continuous, scarious or membranous involucre, formed of the incurved 
edge of the frond. It is distinguished from Cheilanthes only by the greater continuity and regular outline of the 
membranous involucre. (Name from rrepvé, a plume.) 
$ 1. PLATYLOMA, J. Sm.—Frond pinnate (in the Tasmanian species) ; veins forked, free. 
l. Pteris falcata (Br. Prodr. 154); frondibus rigidis erectis linearibus pinnatis, pinnis lineari- 
oblongis lanceolatisve acutis mucronatisve falcatis glabris basi obliquis obtusis nunc margine superiore basi 
auriculato, stipite rachique squamatis.—P. seticaulis, Hook. Ic. Plant. t.207; Fl. N. Zeal. ii. 24. Pella 
falcata, Fée, Gen. Fil. 129; Hook. Sp. Fil. 135. (Gunn, 8.) 
Har. Common in forests, etc.—(». v.) 
Disrrip. New South Wales, Victoria, New Zealand, Penang, Malacca, and the peninsula of India. 
(Cultivated in England.) , 
Fronds ereet, coriaceous, rigid, tufted, 1-3 feet high, narrow-linear, pinnate. Pinne quite glabrous, linear- 
lanceolate or oblong, 2-14 inch long (in Australian specimens 23 inches), shortly stipitate, falcate, un or muero- 
nate, oblique at the base, which is very broadly cuneate; the upper margin sometimes produced into a lobe, or 
gibbous. Sori broad, continuous all round the pinnule, partially covered with a very narrow involucre. Rachis 
stout, densely villous, and covered with spreading, scaly hairs. Stipes black, hispid. 
§ 2. Preris, L.— ronds bi-tripinnate. Veins forked, free, united at their ends by the continuous receptacle. 
2. Pteris aquilina (L.), var. esculenta ; fronde rigida coriacea tripinnata glabra v. subtus parce 
