GYMNOGRAMMA TRIANGULARIS. 
CALIFORNIA GOLD FERN. 
NATURAL ORDER, FILICES. 
GYMNOGRAMMA TRIANGULARIS, Kaulfuss.—Fronds densely tufted, six to twelve inches long, 
dark chestnut-brown, glossy, nearly naked; fronds from three to four inches each way, 
deltoid; lower pinnze very much the largest, deltoid, unequal-sided, the others lanceo- 
late, deeply pinnatifid, with oblong obtuse lobes; texture sub-coriaceous, powdery varying 
from deep orange to white. (Eaton’s Ferns of North America; and Botany of Wheeler's 
Expedition.) 
I the end of the last century there were few large genera 
AY: of ferns but Acrostichum, Polypodium, Asplenium, Pierts 
and Adiantum. But the number of species increased to such an 
extent that it became a matter of convenience as well as of a 
more perfect study to look for systems of classification which 
should unite only those forms that were structurally allied, and 
yet break up the overloaded genera as they were constructed at 
that time. The introduction of the natural system of Botany 
helped the study of classification, though indeed the ferns as they 
stood in the artificial system of Linnaeus composed one of his 
most natural classes. Still with the introduction of the natural 
method, chiefly through Jussieu, the classification of ferns into 
genera was made dependent on little more than the form or 
position of the sori or fruit dots on the frond. Thus to have 
round sori made a PolyPodium, in right lines an Aspleniun, in 
marginal lines a Pleris, and jn terminal sub-circles an Adiantum. 
It was at length found that the manner in which the fruit dots 
opened was uniform in evidently allied forms, and further that the 
manner in which the veins forked or were developed also had 
great similarity in groups that might be divided ee 
