did not influence the author of the genus; nor does Dr. Van den 
Bosch sanction this distinction in his most recent arrangement of 
Hymenophyllacee.* The latter author forms a new genus of a Tri- 
chomanoid plant, which he places next before Féea, Maschalosorus, 
from French Guiana (Le Prieur), J7. Mougeot:, unknown to me, 
but evidently closely allied to our present Zrichomanes, gene- 
rally distinguished by the “ frons pinnatifida, sori axillares ;”— 
in that respect very different from the “ frondes heteromorphe ” 
and “soni spicati” of Zr. spicatum. Butin our present Plate it 
will be seen that the fronds are not always of two distinct kinds, 
but that a sterile frond has scmetimes several of tts lower seg- 
ments transformed into sori ; and on another sample in my her- 
barium, now before me, together with dimorphal fronds, is one 
frond of which the upper half is fertile, the rest as in a sterile 
frond, except that here the segments are interrupted and par- 
tially converted into sori. Is it not possible that A/aschalosorus 
of Van den Bosch may be an abnormal form of our plant, with 
here and there a sterile segment suppressed and a sorus taking 
its place, which would then become axillary, being in the sinus 
of two sterile segments ? 
Puate 60. Fertile plant, sterile and fertile fronds,—natural size. Fig. 1 
Portion of a sterile segment, showing the venation. 2. Portion of a fertile spike, 
with two sori :—maguified. 
* Tt is indeed not a little remarkable that both Presl and Van den Bosch en- 
a overlook the anastomosing venation in Trichomanes elegans, describing it 
s “free ;” and the former author excludes our plant (of Tr. edegans, figured in 
ah Gen. Fil. t. 108, and in our present volume, Plate 2) from his synonyms 
on account of the union of the veins! I possess numerous specimens from various 
parts of Tropical America, and all have the veins distinctly and copiously re- 
ticulated, as in our figure last quoted. 
