382 Transactions. — Botany. 



is also said to have been found in the Sandwich Islands. In fine, when 

 hereafter discovered in fruit, I have little doubt of its belonging to one of 

 those four mentioned genera — Pteris, Lomaria, Nephrolepis or Gymnogramme. 



DOODIA SQUAEEOSA, U.S. 



Cauclex short, thick, oblique, sub-ascending ; roots many, stout, long, 

 black, and wiry, densely clothed with shaggy black shining patent hairs ; 

 plant of densely coespitose close, sub-erect, and squarrose habit, many fronds 

 springing from one stock ; sti2}e rather slender, 6-8 in. long, scabrous yet 

 glossy, straight, and sub-flexuose, deeply channelled on upper-surface, 

 clothed (especially below) with black chaffy acuminate hair-pointed scales, 

 3-3^ hnes long and 1 line broad at base, striated and minutely reticu- 

 lated, reticulations oblong, stipe sub-muricate in distant dots where the 

 scales have fallen ; rhachis slender, brittle, channelled throughout on upper 

 surface, pale-coloured in the upper part, brownish in the lower, with scat- 

 tered long brown tortuous weak and shrivelled scarious scales ; fronds pale 

 green, sub-membranaceous, glossy yet minutely roughish and harsh to feel, 

 dry, sub-rugose and rigid ; the very young circinate and undeveloped ones 

 2-3 in. high, clothed with long black subulate and pointed scales ; fertile fr. 

 lanceolate, very acuminate, 18-19 in. long, with a very long terminal seg- 

 ment ; breadth (mid.) 4^-5:^ in., pinnate, length of pinna (mid.) 2j-2^ in., 

 breadth 4 lines, margins of pinnse and segments sinuous, cartilaginous, 

 sharply and irregularly spinuloso-serrate with white sharp teeth ; cost(B 

 deeply channelled above ; pinncE opposite, 24-28 jugate, sub-falcate, linear, 

 broadest at base, obtuse and truncate ; 4-6 loivest pairs sub-petiolate, free, 

 largely hastate, and largely auricled upwards, 10 lines long, 4-5 lines broad 

 at base ; iij^iper pinnce. sessile, free upwards and auricled, decurrent down- 

 wards ; 3-4 pairs uppermost 2nnna, slighsly pinnatifid ; 5-8 pairs lowermost 

 pinncB very distant, 1 inch apart on rhachis, with the distance between them 

 gradually decreasing upwards ; terminal segment very long, 4^-5 in. long, 

 3 lines broad, linear, strap-shaped, obtuse, sometimes sub-flexuose and sub- 

 crenulated, not unfrequently amdcled below and coadunate with adjoining 

 segments, occasionally bifid at apex, each segment 8-14 lines long ; veins as 

 in the genus, but coarse and much produced ; sori biserial, crowded yet not 

 confluent (save through age in very old fronds), distant from costa, those in 

 row nearest to costa longest, l-2i- lines long, outer row shorter, often com- 

 posed of mere dots, biserial on auricles and wings of pinnae both upwards 

 and downwards, sub-triserial on some long terminal segments, when fully 

 ripe dark-brown and semi-confluent; involucre linear, narrow, pale-coloured, 

 scarious, margin sub-erose, in outer row often sub-lunate and mere dots, 

 but still the same kind of involucre ; barren frond much as fertile, only 



