CHAPTER XX. 



TROCHOPTERIS, Gardner. 



(Troch-op'-ter-is.) 



Wheel Fern. 



NLY one species of this genus is at present known in herbaria, 

 and, so far as we are aware, it is not in cultivation. 

 Trochopteris is a division of the sub-order Schizceacece, and 

 forms in Hooker and Baker's " Synopsis Filicum " Genus 67. 

 The name is derived from trochos, a wheel, and pteris, a Fern, 

 in allusion to the appearance of the plant, the fronds of which resemble 

 the leaves of a Geum, and are disposed in a dense, rosulate tuft. The 

 distinctive characters of the genus reside in the habit of the plant, which 

 resembles a dwarf Anemia, but with fertile and barren parts of the fronds 

 not distinct, and in the disposition of the fructification, the capsules being 

 small, stalkless, and placed irregularly round the edge of the under-side of 

 the slightly-contracted lower lobes of the leafy fronds. The plant not being 

 grown in Europe, we cannot give any information respecting its culture. 



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



A stove species, native of South Brazil and Cuba. Its fronds, lin. long 

 and little more than Jin. broad, are borne on very short stalks ; they are 

 lyrate-pinnatifid (having several pairs of small lobes with deep depressions 

 between them), of a soft, papery texture, and hairy on both surfaces. The 

 upper lobes are rounded and not deep, and the lowest pair reach down nearly 

 to the midrib and have laciniated edges. — Hooker, Synopsis Filicum, p. 436. 



