Prats 26. 
AcrosticHuM (GYMNOPTERIS) NICOTIANZFOLIUM, Sw. 
Tobacco-leaved Acrostichum. 
AcRosticHUM nicotianefolium ; caudex long, stout, creeping; stipites stout, 
distant, one and a half to two feet long, scaly below; fronds dimorphous, 
one to two feet long, submembranaceous, pinnated with three to seven or 
ten petiolated pinnee, terminal one the largest ; sterile frond, pinne four to 
eight inches long, elliptical-ovate, rather suddenly acuminated, sinuato- 
dentate at the margin, penniveined ; primary veins subarcuate, connected 
by transverse subarcuate lesser veins, their areoles with anastomosing ulti- 
mate veinlets, which are appendiculated ; fertile fronds smaller than the 
sterile; pinnz oblong-lanceolate, subacuminate. 
AcROSTICHUM nicotianefolium. Sw. Syn. Fil. p. 13. ¢.199. Willd. Sp. Pl. v. 5. 
p. 118. 
GYMNOPTERIS nicotianeefolia. Pr. Tent, Pterid. p. 244. 
AcRosTIcHUM acuminatum. Willd. Sp. Pl. p. 116. 
GYMNOPTERIS acuminata. Pr. Tent. Pterid. p. 244. 
Gymwnopteris latifolia. Pr. l.c.? (Fée). 
Lingua cervina scandens citriifoliis major. Plum. Fil. p. 100.2. 116. 
Has. Tropical America. West Indies: Martinique, Plumier ; Jamaica, Swartz, 
Wilson, Purdie; Cuba, 0. Wright, n. 188, Linden, 2117. British Guiana, 
Schomburgk. Near Para, Brazil, Spruce, . 28. Cultivated at Kew. 
A very fine bold-growing species, frequent in marshy ground, 
according to the testimony of Plumier and of Spruce. The 
pinne vary in size, both of the sterile and fertile fronds (the 
latter are always the smaller of the two), and they vary in their 
relative length and breadth: hence two species have been con- 
stituted, which are hardly worth recording even as varieties. It 
is an exceedingly well marked species. M. Fée has lauded the 
figure of Plumier as characteristic of his Gymnopterts acuminata ; 
his own figure, G@. nicotianefolia, can in no way be distin- 
guished from Plumier’s plant, which is the original authority for 
our Acrostichum nicotianefolium. It is remarkable that Swartz 
should have overlooked Plumier’s figure, and placed it among 
his “< species incertz.” 
Prare 26. Fig. 1, 2, 3. Portion of a caudex and stipes, and upper portion 
of a sterile and of a fertile frond,—natural size. 4. Portion of a fertile pinna, 
with the fructification partially removed to show the venation, —magnified. 
JULY 1st, 1861. 
