148 roth's fern. 



€\nxnttm. 



Genus. — Lophodium. (See page 136). 



Species. — Multifloeum. Caudex tufted, large, solid, 

 long- enduring, its crown densely scaly : fronds symmetrically 

 arranged round the crown : stipes very stout, nearly as long as 

 the frond, densely clothed with long pointed scales, which are 

 dark brown along the middle but pale at the edges : frond 

 glandular when young, very large, deep green, drooping, ovate- 

 lanceolate, pinnate : pinnse pinnate ; lowest pair usually shorter 

 than the second, third, fourth or fifth : pinnules pinnate or 

 pinnatifid : ultimate divisions serrated, spined : all the divi- 

 sions of the frond convex : involucre nearly circular, fringed 

 with stalked glands : clusters of capsules circular, covering 

 every part of the frond. 



Polypodium cristatum, Linn. Sp. PL 1551 ; " Willd. Prod. 

 Berol. No. 885 ; Fl. Germ. p. 448, No. 6," teste Eoth. 



Polypodium multiflorum, Roth, Catalecta Bot. Fasc. i. p. 135. 



Aspidium dilatatum, spinulosum, and dumetorum, Sm. E. F. 

 iv. 292 — 4, and also of Smith's Herbarium, now in the 

 possession of the Linnean Society. 



Aspidium spinulosum, Swartz, Syn. Fil. 420 ; Willd. Sp. PI. 

 V. 202; Fries, Summa, 82. 



Polystichum multiflorum, Roth, Fl. Germ. iii. 87. 



Lastrea spinulosa, Presl, Tent. Pteridog. 76. 



Lastrea dilatata, Netvm. N. A. 23 ; Bab. 411. 



Lastrea multiflora, Neiom. F. 215. 



Lophodium multiflorum, Neivm. Phytol. iv. 371, App. xvii. 



I adopt Roth's name of " multiflorum," not because it has 

 the claim of priority, which is, however, probably the case, but 

 because I cannot feel certain that any prior description was 

 intended to represent that individual species to which Both 

 exclusively refers. The names of cristatum, dilatatum and 

 spinulosum are indifferently applied to this species by those 

 botanists who think that off-hand decisions are preferable to 



