56 ; 
OPHIOGLOSSUM perio.atum. 
Petiolated Adder’s-Tongue. 
CRYPTOGAMIA FILICES.—Nat. Orv. FILICES. 
Gen. Cuar.—Capsule nude in spicam articulatam disticham connate, uni- 
loculares, transverse dehiscentes, bivalves.—W. 
Ophioglossum petiolatwm; spica caulina longe pedunculata, fronde ovato- 
acuminata laxe reticulata, basi longe attenuata. 
Root consisting of several whitish, simple, fleshy, flexuose fibres. Stipe 3 or 
4 inches long, erect, flexuose, bearing a single terminal ovato-lanceolate, 
acuminate, waved, thin, membranaceous leaf or frond, which, when dry, 
is seen to be marked with large, oblong reticulations, which are scarcely 
visible in the living plant; the base of this frond is suddenly contracted 
into a narrow channelled kind of footstalk. 
Spike originating from the base of the channelled petiole, pedunculated ; pe- 
duncle longer than the stipes, slender, erect, cylindrical ; spike itself li- 
near-lanceolate, compressed, consisting of numerous, distichous, coadunate 
spherical capsules, which in age burst transversely and contain a globu- 
lar mass of minute, yellowish granules. _ 
Living individuals of this species of Adder’s-tongue, at- 
tached to the roots of some plants from the West Indies, 
were received at the Liverpool Botanie Garden, whence Messrs 
SHEPHERD forwarded some excellent specimens to me, with 
the name of O. ovatum of Wi1LLDENOow annexed to them. 
With the description of this author, the present individual, 
indeed, in some respects ; but Bory DE St 
ViINcENT, who found it in the Isle de Bourbon, and who is 
it differs from the European O. in having a short- 
ly pedunculated spike, which hardly exceeds the length of the 
frond ; whereas one of the striking of the pre- 
VOR. I. 
