B4 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
tem of the Synopsis Filicum of Hooker, but it is by no 
means a. natural in all points. Diels united into a 
single genus, \’phrodium (now Dryopteris), all the spe- 
cies previously referred to Lastrea, Nephrodium, Phegop- 
_teris, Gontopteris , Leptogramma, and Meniscium. It is 
difficult to give a ' diipaclis of a genus including such dif- 
ferent forms; but characters common to all species are 
the inarticulated stipes, the round or somewhat oblong 
dorsal sori, which are often covered by reniform indusia, 
and the never complicated venation. It is true that there 
a _is a great uniformity as to these characters, and species 
es showing them must naturally belong together, but the 
<< question now arises, whether all these species belong to 
to several natural genera, which together 
to segregate groups of species’ as genera; 
genera have been described by different — 
: some few of them have been at any 
~~ made 
