564 FILICALES 
EMBRYOLOGY. 
The development of the embryo appears to follow the type usual for 
Leptosporangiate Ferns, but the details are not adequately known. 
The Palaeophytological evidence coupled with the anatomical and soral 
characters indicates for the Gleicheniaceae a position among relatively 
primitive Ferns. The comparative examination of the living species leads 
to the recognition of G. flabellata as a central type. This is not so much 
suggested by the external form, as by the sorus, the stelar structure, the 
relatively simple insertion of the leaf-trace, and the non-involuted strand 
of the petiole. This species also shows the largest spore-output per 
sporangium observed in the family. There has probably been a line of 
diminution of the individual pinnules to produce the condition seen in 
§ Eugleichenia, together with a reduction in number of the sporangia in- 
the sorus, leading to a type of monangial sorus similar to that of the 
Schizaeaceae. A line of probable advance has been to such forms as 
G. pectinata and dichotoma; for not only do these species show interpo- 
lation of extra sporangia in the sorus, together with smaller sporangia 
and diminished output per sporangium, but also they are anatomically 
more complex. This is specially shown by the large nodal pockets of 
G. dichotoma, and ultimately by the continuous solenostely seen in G. 
pectinata. In both respects these species indicate changes from the central 
type in the direction of Cyatheaceous characters. 
MATONINEAE. 
This family? is represented by only two species of living Ferns, AZatonia 
pectinata and M. sarméntosa, both of limited distribution in the Malayan 
region. But Ferns referred to this affinity on the characters of leaf and 
fructification played a prominent part in the vegetation of the Secondary 
Rocks, and have been traced back as far as the Rhaetic period: this 
fact accords with the unmistakable analogies which they show to the 
Gleicheniaceae. 
The two living species differ in habit: AZ pectinata is a stout, ground- 
growing species, with elongated creeping rhizome, covered with filamentous 
hairs, and branching in an apparently dichotomous manner. It bears 
solitary leaves at considerable distances apart on its upper surface. 
These grow to a height of 6 to 8 feet, and have a very characteristic pedate 
construction of the lamina, which is referable to a dichotomous system 
of branching (Fig. 315): even the “middle lobe,” which often appears 
1 Rawenhoff, Arch. Neerl., T. xxiv., p. 223. 
2The chief sources of information have been MWatur. Pflanzenfam., i. 4.5 Pp. 3433 
Seward, Phil, Trans., vol. 191, p. 1713 Tansley and Lulham, Azmn. of Bot., vol. 
xix., p. 475, and my own Studics, iv., p. 44. 
