LOPHODIUM FCENISECII. 141 



SO that they are difficult to extract, and are commonly broken 

 in the attempt. The caudex is remarkably large, solid, and 

 woody, its crown broad and circular, and the undeveloped 

 fronds seem unusually numerous, and look like a mass of no-, 

 dules crowded together. The fronds, on first rising from the 

 earth, are regularly convolute, and when they exhibit the first 

 symptoms of unfolding, the two lower pinnae are very conspicu- 

 ous, and their superior size is still more manifest than at a later 

 period. When the frond is entirely unfolded, it is of an elon- 

 gate-triangular form, of a very gracefully curved habit, and 

 about equal in length to the stipes, which is dark purple in co- 

 lour, very hard and woody in texture, and very long-enduring ; 

 it is clothed with narrow, elongate, laciniated, pointed, brown, 

 concolorous scales, which, in luxluriant plants, are frequently so 

 numerous and so divided as to give the stipes a woolly appear- 

 ance : one of these scales is shown in the right hand figure at 

 page 146. The frond is pinnate, and, as in all truly deltoid 

 ferns, the lower pinnae are notably larger and longer than the 

 rest, and very distinctly stipitate. The pinnae are pinnate, the 

 pinnules pinnate, and the lobes again divided and serrated, and 

 all the serratures terminate in short spines. The inferior pin- 

 nules are generally larger than the superior, and the first infe- 

 rior pinnule of the lower pair of pinnae is vastly superior to all 

 the rest in magnitude. The colour of the young frond is a 

 most lovely green, and all its ultimate divisions are concave, 

 giving to the plant, especially when young and barren, a very 

 peculiar and crisped appearance. The under sm-face of the 

 frond is abundantly sprinkled over with minute, sessile, pellu- 

 cid, globular, and, I presume, glandular bodies ; a distinctive 

 character of the species, and one for the knowledge of which I 

 was first indebted to a kind communication from Lord Downe, 

 then the Hon. W. H. Dawnay. These bodies, in all probability, 

 emit the hay-like scent which induced Mr. Lowe to give the 

 species the very appropriate name of " foenisecii." 



The clusters of capsules are circular, and are equally distri- 

 buted over all the frond : they are partially covered by a slightly 

 convex and somewhat reniform involucre, the margins of which 

 are jagged and uneven, and are sometimes beset with a few of 

 those globular, sessile glands which have been described as 

 sprinkled generally over the under surface of the frond : this 



