an apex of one of the bifurcations which can be introduced of the 
natural size. In shape both the sterile and fertile fronds vary 
extremely, the former from the diameter of the palm of the 
hand, to two and a half and three feet in length; and the latter 
from six inches, with perfect sori, to three feet; in the broadest 
segment, from one to six inches, and in one case a foot, and the 
spread of the fructification extending to that diameter. Our 
finest specimens are from Prince’s Island, where Barter and Mann 
record its unusual size compared with the specimens from the 
mainland. It often grows on the'Sandbox-tree. 
Unwilling as I am to change an old established specific name, 
I cannot but give the preference to that of Plukenet, which M. 
Fée has adopted. M. Palisot de Beauvois writes the specific 
name “ stemaria,”’ probably intended as stemmaria (from stemma, 
a crown), but he does not give this as his own, but as that of 
Commerson, MSS., attached to a drawing of some plant of the 
kind, which that distinguished naturalist found in Madagascar, 
whence I possess specimens of the true P/. alcicorne, collected 
by Boivin, and which is no doubt the stemaria of Commerson. 
No instance is yet recorded of the present species being found, 
save on the western tropical coast of Africa. It does not enter 
the Cape possessions, nor does it appear among the Ferns of Dr. 
Kirk, from Dr. Livingstone’s Zambesi Expedition. Dr. Kirk 
indeed sent home specimens from Sierra Leone, collected on his 
route to eastern tropical Africa. Its nearest affinity is doubtless 
with 4. alcicorne, as we have already observed, and like that is 
prolific from the root ; but its much broader and (in proportion) 
shorter and drooping fertile fronds, their sharper segments, and 
when fully developed, much larger sterile fronds, will readily dis- 
tinguish it. It propagates itself by offsets from the base of the 
frond. 
Fig. 1. Greatly reduced plant, with sterile and fertile fronds of Platycerium 
AGthiopicum. 2. Apex of a fertile frond, with sorus,—zatural size. 3. Small 
portion of a fertile frond, from which part of the sorus is removed, showing the 
venation there,—magnified. 
