9d BOTANY. 
very narrow, often longer than the others, and curved upwards, similarly 
mucronate.—P. Wrightiana and P. longimucronata, Hooker, Sp. Fil. ii, p. 
142 and 143, t. exv. P. mucronata, Baker, Syn. Fil. p. 148; D. C. Eaton, 
in Bot. of Mex. Boundary, p. 233, in part. P. Weddelliana, Fée, 8° Mém.. 
p- 74! 
Western Texas and Colorado to New Mexico and Arizona. Bolivia, Weddell. Not seen from Cali- 
fornia. This plant varies much in the number of pinnules to a pinna, the lower pinne having commonly 
five or six pairs of them, but sometimes only two pairs besides the odd or terminal one. This latter 
form is strictly Hooker’s P. Wrightiana, and the least developed examples of it I do not know how to 
clearly distinguish from P. ternifolia ; the form with more numerous segments is Hooker’s P. longimucro- 
na ooker describes this as well as the next species as having “ tufted oe springing from clus- 
teed bulb-like candices or rhizomes, about the size of hazel-nuts”; and Fée notices a similar “souche 
bulbiforme écailleuse” in the Bolivian plant. This latter, of which its describer has favored me with a 
specimen, has precisely the frond and pinnules of the narrow form of P. Wrightiana, but the scales of 
the rootstock are of a lighter brown, and with a less developed dark midrib, but not destitute of it as he 
has described them. In all these plants, the scales of the rootstock, when very young, and those found 
on the stalk of the growing frond, are nearly white. 
Pellzxa Ornithopus, Hooker. 
Rootstock and stalks as in the last species, though often stouter ; fronds 
very rigid, a few inches to a foot long, broadly deltoid-lanceolate in out- 
line, when fully developed tripinnate; primary pinne spreading or obliquely 
ascending, linear, the lower ones 4 to 4 the length of the frond, bearing 
from a few up to 15 or 16 pairs of trifoliolate, but varying to simple or to 
pinnately 5—7-foliolate, pinnules, which are usually only 14 to 2 lines long, 
coriaceous, slightly glaucous beneath, roundish-quadrate in the rare sterile 
fronds, and with the margins rolled in to the midrib in fertile fronds, 
minutely mucronate——Sp. Fil. ii, p. 143, t. exvi, A. Allosorus mucronatus, 
D. C. Eaton in Silliman’s Journal, July, 1856 (described from very small 
specimens from Monte Diablo). 
Var. brachyptera, Eaton. 
Secondary rachises ascending, much shortened, giving the frond a 
narrower outline and a denser habit; the pinnules crowded, oblong-linear, | 
simple or trifoliolate, varying according to drought or humidity from 14 to 5 
lines in length—Platyloma brachypterum and P. bellum, T. Moore in The 
Gardeners’ Chronicle, Feb. 1873, pp. 141 and 213, ex char. 
Common throughout California from San Diego and Guadalupe Island (Palmer) to Mendocino 
County and Grass Valley, growing mostly on hel hillsides in tufts among rocks, exposed to a long sum- 
mer’s drought and to ascorching sun. This bears the same relation to P. Wrightiana which that plant 
does to P. ternifolia, having more decompound ie and still smaller ultimate pinnules. Plants culti- 
