POLYPODIACEiE. 47 



Plant terrestrial, growing in large patches or groups, in open ele- 

 vated situations. Rootstock creeping above ground, about the thickness 

 of a man's finger, and together with the base of the stipe, furnished 

 with long, brownish-black, slender scales. Stipe erect, 2 feet or more 

 in length, smooth, of a tawny-brown colour, and channelled in front. 

 Fronds reniform in circumscription, about 2 feet broad, coriaceous, 

 smooth above, and glaucous beneath, deeply two-parted; the lobes pal- 

 mate-laciniate, with broadly lanceolate, acuminate, obtuse, coarsely serrate 

 segments. Costa dichotomons, smooth, in a young state woolly, branch- 

 ing once or twice after entering the segments, and not unfrequently 

 the ultimate forkings uniting again, forming thereby elongated areoles. 

 Between the branches of the costa, the reticulations of the primary 

 veins are beautiful, and not a little singular in their arrangement. 

 The veins start at almost regular distances, and at right angles with 

 the costa, the spaces between being partitioned off by cross veins into 

 oblong and nearly quadrangular meshes, within which the venules 

 form a smaller set of reticulations, of a nearly similar form to those 

 by which they are enclosed. With an eye-glass there can be seen to 

 exist, within the last, a third and more minute, delicate, and obscure 

 set of reticulations, formed by transparent veinlets, the meshes of 

 which are more irregular in their form ; and on these veinlets at their 

 intersection, the small sori are seated. 



Between this and the D. (Polypodium) Wdllichii of K. Brown, as 

 figured by Hooker and Greville, in the Icones Filicum, t. 168 & 169, 

 there is only a slight difference; which consists principally in the 

 fronds of our plant being glaucous on the under surface, with serrate 

 segments, and the costa always branching after entering these. 



* # * Frondes pinna tifidce vel ban pinnatas. 



10. Drynaria acuminata, Sp. Nov. - /u j J . /*' ^ 



D. fronde glabra membranacea profimde pinnatifida, laciniis subal- 

 ternis elongato-lanceolatis acuminatis margine repandis; costa subtus 

 prominente; soris spar sis rotundis distantibw subimmersis. 



Hab. Island of Savaii, Samoan Group. 



