90 CHAEACTEES OF TEIBES AND GENEEA. 



Surcidum thick and fleshy, or slender and sub-liypoga- 

 ceous. Fronds pinnatifid or pinnate, rarely simple, uni- 

 form, 1 to 3 feet liigli, smooth or slightly pubescent, 

 segments and pinnas adherent with the rachis. Veins 

 once or more times forked, or equally pinnate, the lower 

 anterior venule always free, the rest angularly anasto- 

 mosing, and generally producing an excurrent free veinlet 

 from their angular junctions. Seceptadt'S ^unciiiovm, super- 

 ficial, terminal on the anterior free venules, and also often 

 on the excurrent veinlets. Sori round or rarely oblong, 

 solitary in the areoles, transverse one to six serial, naked. 



Type. Polypodium loriceum, Linn. 



Illust.— Hook, and Bauer, t. 70, B. ; Hook. Syn. Fil. t. 

 5, fig. 48, h. ; J. Sm., Perns Brit, and For., fig. 7. 



Obs. — The name GoniopJilebium was originally given by 

 Blume to a section of Polypodium, consisting of a few 

 species, natives principally of the Malayaa Islands. Presl 

 in his " Tentamen " raised the name to the rank of a 

 genus, under which he enumerates eight sjjecies, three of 

 which constitute Blume's section Oonioplddiium, the others 

 l)eing natives of the West Indies and Tropical America. 

 He also characterises another genus, and adopts for it the 

 name Marginaria, first given by Bory to P. incanum of 

 Swartz. Under this genus he enumerates thirtjr-sis 

 species, which he arranges under two sections. The 

 first contains nine species, which difier entirely in habit 

 from his second section, which consists of twenty-five 

 species, sixteen of them, with the exception of M. aincena, 

 being natives of America, and possessing no character 

 either in halsit or venation to distinguish them from 

 Presl's American species of GoniopJdi-hium. The other 

 nine like those of the first species, although agreeing in 

 venation, nevertheless differ entirely in habit. 



