322 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. cxv. P. mucronata, Baker, Syn. Fil. p. 148 ; D. C Eaton, 

 in Bot. of Mex. Boundary, p. 233, in part. P. Weddelliana, Fee, 8 mo Mem. 

 p. 74! 



Western Texas and Colorado to New Mexico aud Arizona. Bolivia, IVeddell. Not seen from Cali- 

 fornia. This plant varies much in the number of pinnules to a pinna, the lower pinna} 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- 

 nata. Hooker describes this as well as the next species as having " tufted stipites springing from clus- 

 tered bulb-like caudices or rhizomes, about the size of hazel-nuts"; and Fee notices a similar "soucho 

 bulbiforme eeailleuse" 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. 



Pellaea 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 pinnae spreading or obliquely 

 ascending, linear, the lower ones 4 to ^ 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 1£ 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. cxvi, A. Allosorus mucronahts, 

 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 1 £ to 5 

 lines in length. — Platyloma bracliypterwm and P. bellum, T. Moore in The 

 Gardeners' Chronicle, Feb. 1873, pp. 141 and 213, ex char. 



Common throughout Califoruia from San Diego and Guadalupe Island (Palmer) to Mendocino 

 County and Grass Valley, growing mostly on dry hillsides in tufts among rocks, exposed to a long sum- 

 mer's drought and to a tcorchiug sun. This bears the same relation to P. Wrightiana which that plant 

 does to P. ternifolia, having more decompound fronds and still smaller ultimate pinnules. Plants culti- 



