178 GYMNCGRAMMA TRIANGULARIS. —CALIFCRNIA GCLD FERN, 
genera, and with some other characters of more or less impor- 
tance the great family of ferns was divided into numerous 
genera, and their study much simplified in consequence. Still 
division has been carried further than sound dividing characters 
perhaps warrant,—certainly beyond the point that natural appear- 
ances in the species grouped into genera seem to demand; and 
while there have been over five hundred genera described by 
various modern authors, it is probable there are really but one- 
third of that number which would stand criticism from a truly 
natural point of view. Our genus Gymnogramma was taken 
from Acrostichum in 1811, by Desveaux, a celebrated French 
botanist of the early part of the century, and chiefly because 
the fruit was not only in right lines, but was characterized by 
the absence of an indusium or membrane, which usually seems 
to cover in part the sporangia. It was from this peculiarity that 
the name Gymnogramma was formed; gymnos being a Greek 
word for naked, and ¢7vamma, writing or lines; that is, the lines 
of fruit being naked. The species are somewhat numerous, but 
chiefly inhabit tropical regions. Only two enter the limits of 
the United States. Of these only our present subject has ven- 
tured far within its borders, and this is found from along the 
Pacific coast from Central America north to Vancouver’s Island. 
It was first discovered, like so many other of our western species, 
by the Vancouver expedition, and named Gymnogramma tri- 
angularis by Kaulfuss, who described the ferns collected on this 
voyage ia his “Enumeration Filicum,” published in Leipsic in 
1824. Our knowledge of it is therefore comparatively recent, 
and we are only now beginning to find that several supposed 
distinct species of various authors belong to it. Sir W. J. 
Hooker, in his “Species Filicum,” says, “it is remarkably uniform 
in its form and ramifications,” but specimens from different col- 
lectors in the herbarium of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 
Philadelphia, show the variations usual in well-known ferns. 
Mr. Nuttall has specimens from San Diego, California, which he 
thought deserving of a distinct specific name. He labels it G. 
