CHAPTER XVIL 



THYRSOPTERIS, Kunze. 



( Thyr-sop'-ter-is.) 



ERIVED from thyrsos, a bunch or raceme, and Pteris, a Fern, 

 this name alludes to the fructification in the genus, which 

 is disposed in racemose bunches. In Hooker and Baker's 

 " Synopsis Filicum " Thyrsopteris forms a division of the 

 tribe Cyathece as jGenus 3. It is composed of a solitary and 

 most interesting species, which, according to Nicholson, was introduced from 

 Juan Fernandez Island in 1854. It is a thoroughly distinct plant, requiring 

 only greenhouse temperature, shade, and an abundance of water at the roots. 

 The fructification is totally different from that of any other known Fern, 

 and consists of the two or three pairs of lower leaflets of the frond being 

 tripinnate (three times divided to the midrib), each pinnule (leafit) becoming 

 a raceme of stalked, cup-shaped involucres. Although fertile fronds have at 

 various times been produced in this country and every possible attention has 

 been paid to the sowing of their spores, there is no record of any young 

 plants having been so raised, and the propagating of this handsome Fern has 

 therefore been limited to the rooting of the lateral shoots which are produced 

 on the trunk. 



T. elegans — e'-leg-ans (elegant), Kunze. 



This beautiful plant is said to produce, in its native habitats, trunks 

 15ft. high, but in this country we have never had the advantage of seeing 



