Puate 15. 
BLECHNUM (Satrtcutana) votusitn, K7Jfs. 
Scandent Blechnum. 
Brecunum (Salpichlena) volubile ; caudex thick, creeping, bearing sparse, rigid 
scales ; stipites very long, and, with the rachises, extending many feet in 
length, climbing over trees to a great height; fronds bipinnate; pinnee with 
three to seventeen petiolated pinnules, which are six to twelve inches long, 
lanceolate or linear-oblong lanceolate, serrated more or less only at the 
points, coriaceous, glossy, obtuse and unequal at the base; veins copious, 
simple or forked, united at their apices by the thickened margin; sori linear, 
continuous, close-pressed to the costa; involucre rigid-membranaceous, 
black, at first involutely cylindrical, membranaceous, at length patent and 
flat, breaking up into pieces of various lengths, and separating and falling 
away from the pinnules. 
Biecunom volubile. Kaulf. Enum. p. 159 (excl. the locality). Hook. Gen. Fil. 
t. 93; Sp. Fil. v. 3. p. 62. Kee. Annal. Pterid. p. 20. t. 18. Metten. 
Fil. ort. Lips. p. 68. 
SaLprcuLana volubilis. J. Sm. in Hook. Journ. of Bot. v. 4. p. 168. Pr. 
Epimel. Bot. p. 122. Fée, Gen. Fil. p. 79. 
Biecunum scandens. Bory in Duperrey Voy. p. 272. t. 36. 
SALPICHLENA scandens. Presi, Epim. Bot. p. 122. 
Has. Tropical America, apparently frequent: Brazil, Sellow, Blanchet, Gardner, 
n 185, 5306, ete.; Guiana, Leprieur (sterile pinnules two inches broad), 
Schomburgk, Kappler ; Peru, Lechler, n. 2542; Tarapota, eastern Peru, R. 
Spruce (without number, pinnules small, strongly serrated at the apex, sori 
very narrow); Columbia, Purdie (pinnules fifteen to sixteen inches long), 
Moritz, Funck, n. 176, Fendler, n. 17 (leaves almost elliptical, very abruptly 
acuminate). West Indies: Dominica, Dr. Imray, n. 53 (sterile pinnules 
22 inches broad); Guadeloupe, L’Herminier ; Trinidad, Cruger ; Jamaica, 
Purdie.—Cultivated in the stove at Kew. 
This is, on several accounts, a very remarkable Fern; and 
not the least peculiarity is its very close general resemblance to 
our Lomaria volubilis (‘Species Filicum,’ v. 3. t. cl.) from the 
Amazon. The latter however has thin, almost membranaceous 
pinnules, spinuloso-serrate at the apex, and somewhat cuneate 
and nearly equal at the base, dull and opaque on the surface, and 
the fertile pinnules are narrow-linear, much longer than the ste- 
rile ones, and with decided fructification of a Lomaria ; marginal 
involucres, etc. Both climb over trees to a height of twenty and 
thirty fect, like a Zygodium. Our present plant has the fructi- 
fication of a Blechnum, even in its earliest stage; the involucres 
originate near the costa: these unroll, and at length lie quite flat 
APRIL lst, 1861. 
