24 CARL CHRISTENSEN AND CARL SKOTTSBERG 



of El Yunque (no. I 149) ; C. Central, c. 470 m (no. 309); just below the Porte- 

 zuelo pass, c 500 m (no. 133); north face of Co Piramide, c. 580 m; Vaqueria, 

 c. 250 m. 



Masafuera: Q. de las Chozas, in dense forests, 5—600 m (no. 545); C. 

 del Barril, among rocks, 985 m (no. 532); O. de las Casas, under overhanging 

 rocks in the bottom of the canyon (no. 509). 



A considerable number of specimens show that this is a variable species, 

 varying in size, and in shape and cutting of the pinnae. COLLA's figure is 

 not good as it does not show the shortened lower pinnae, which are more or 

 less fanshaped with flabellate venation. The leaves often produce new plants 

 at their tips, whose leaves are again proliferous. The stipe is some times 

 winged with the wing broadest below, sometimes unwinged. Lamina more or 

 less thin, dark green (yellowish in open places), the rhachis narrowly alate 

 throughout. In some specimens the pinnae resemble Colla's plate, but they 

 are often shorter and broader, with a rounded or obtuse apex, commonly with 

 a lobed auricle at the upper base, more or less excised at the lower, the large 

 lobes entire or cleft. 



A. stellatum belong to the A. ////////;/////// assemblage, spread through the 

 tropics in many varieties. Recently HllLRONYMUS (Hedwigia 60, 1919) de- 

 scribed or restored a series of species of this group. Under the new species 

 A. tabmense he mentions A. femandezianum Kze, a younger name for A. stel- 

 latum. 



A. stellatum seems to combine several characters, of which one or more 

 are found now in one, now in another of the allied species. In general habit 

 it mostly resembles the South African A. erectum Bory, in its winged rhachis 

 and stipe A. pleropus Klf., common in tropical America. From the latter, which 

 may be considered as its nearest relative, it differs in the coal black, rigid 

 basal scales. 



Area of distribution: Endemic. 



27. A. magellanicum Klf. Enum. 175 (1824); Hemsl. 74; Johow 1893: 

 32, 1896: 163. 



Found in several distant stations, but not common; chiefly in the woods 

 or in wet moss near running water. Probably fertile at any season. 



Masatierra: C. Chifladores, dense forest on the slope towards Pto Fran- 

 ces, c. 500 m; Pangal, at the cascade, in wet moss; Q. Damajuana, at the foot 

 of a small waterfall (no. 61); in the woods on both sides of Portezuelo: along 

 the stream, on the ground and on trees. 



Masafuera: Forest on the Sanchez plain, 515 m; O, de las Chozas, dark 

 ravine under Dicksonia; Q. del Mono, dry bed of the stream, 570 m (no. 461); 

 O. de las Casas, in the canyon (no. 452); O. del Blindado, on the ground and 

 on trees and arboreous ferns, 440 m; Q. Angosta, about I km from the en- 

 trance, at the waterfall; O. Loberia, along the stream and in the forest patch 

 at 200 m; the Correspondencia Camp, in the Lo/>/ioso/ia-bcds, and in moss 

 mats at the foot of Las Torres, 1370 m. 



The island specimens do not quite agree with continental ones. The}' are 



