Puare 39. 
CHEILANTHES mourtiriwa, Sw. 
Many-branched Cheilanthes. 
CHEILANTHES multifida ; caudex short, thick, slightly creeping, clothed with 
black subulate scales; roots tufted, fibrous; stipites sparse, four to six 
inches long, plane and margined above on the anterior side, below a little 
scaly at the base, and as well as the rachises stout, rigid, deep ebony-black, 
glossy; fronds glabrous, four inches to a span or foot and more long, del- 
toid-ovate, acute, when young often glanduloso-punctate beneath, tri-, below 
quadrt-partite, coriaceous ; primary pinne supposite, broad-ovate, subdeltoid, 
petiolate; pinnules or segments oblong, pinnatifid; lobes subrotund, con- 
vex, each bearing two to four, subrotund, flattish, appressed, pale-brown, 
submembranaceous, distinct involucres. 
CHEILANTHES multifida. Sw. Syn. Fil. pp. 129,184. Willd. Sp. Pl. v.5. p. 459. 
Bl, Enum. Fil. p. 137. Schlecht. ddumbr. p. 40. f.29. Pr. Tent. Pterid. 
Metten. Fil. Hort. Lips. p.52. Cheilanth. p. 89. ¢. 3. f. 20,21. Hook. Sp. 
Fil. vo. 2. p. 90. 100 B. Pappe and Raws. Syn. Fil. Afr. Austr. p. 33. 
CuEitanruss Capensis. Hekl. in Un. It. n. 168 (Herd. Nostr.). 
ALLOsORUS multifidus. Bernh. 
ApIaNnTUM multifidum axd Lonchitis Caffrorum. Sw. in Schrad. Journ. 
Has. South Africa, Lcklon and Zeyher, Villette, etc.; Macalisberg, Sanderson ; 
Albany, Harvey. Tast-tropical Africa, Moramballa Hill (elev. 2500 feet), 
on the Zambesi, Dr. Kirk, in Dr. Livingstone’s Zambesi Exped. (very large). 
St. Helena, Benneté in Herb. Nostr., Roxburgh in Herb. Banks. Lofty 
mountains, Blume in Herb. Nostr.—Cultivated in the temperate Fern-house 
of Kew. 
If the sterile pinnz and pinnules be alone inspected of this 
species, its affinity with the Indian Chetlanthes Mysurensis is con- 
siderable ; but the very different outline of the much more com- 
pound fronds of the latter will serve to distinguish them. Blume’s 
specimens from Java and those from St. Helena are identical 
with our numerous ones from South Africa. The Zambesi plant 
gathered by Dr. Kirk has fronds measuring fourteen and sixteen 
inches long, but it is not otherwise different from that of the 
extremity. It is indeed remarkable how many of the Cape spe- 
cies extend to East-tropical Africa. 
Prate 39. Fertile plant of Cheilanthes multifida, Sw.,—natural size. Fig. 1. 
Pinnule, with sori,—magnified. 2. Small portion of the same, with sori,—more 
magnified. 
OCTOBER lst, 1861. 
