POLYPODIACEtE. I57 



Hab. Banos, Andes of Peru : in crevices of rocks. 



Stipe prostrate, filiform, proliferous, and dichotomous, 4 to 6 inches 

 long, of a sooty-brown colour. Fronds about a span long, linear-Ian- 

 ceolate, pinnate. Pinnce of a livid green colour, smooth and mem- 

 branaceous, subpetiolate, 5 to 6 lines long and about 4 lines broad, of 

 a rhombic-ovate form, having an unequal cuneate base, and parted into 

 two ovate-cuneate segments, the inferior one the larger, their apices 

 irregularly crenate. Bhachis sulcate. Veins forked or branching. Sori 

 usually two in number on the smaller, and 3 to 5 on the larger seg- 

 ments. Indusium linear-oblong, entire, pla?ie, and of a pale straio-colour. 

 Whole plant slender and of a rambling habit. 



Nearly allied to the A. triphyllum of Presl, as figured in Hooker 

 and Greville's Icones Filicum ; but that is bipinnate, the fronds pro- 

 liferous at the apex, and bearing a solitary sorus on each pinnule. 



Plate 21. — Fig. 2. Fronds, of the natural size. 2 a. Under side of 

 a pinna, showing the indusium ; magnified. 



25. ASPLENIUM FALCATUM, Lam. 



Asplenium falcatum, Lam. ex Sw. Syn. Fil. p. 77; Willd. Spec. PI. 5, p. 325; A. 

 Rich. Bot. Voy. Astrol. p. 73 ; A. Cunn. in Hook. Comp. Bot. Mag. 2, p. 364. 



Yar. (3. attenuatum : pinnis in acumen elongatum angustam productis. 

 (Tab. 22.) 



Hab. Samoan Islands. Tongatabu. Vicinity of the Bay of Islands 

 New Zealand. Tahiti, Society Islands. Var. (3. Feejee Islands. 



This species occurs frequently on all the groups of islands in the 

 Pacific Ocean here designated. In our var. [3. attenuatum, the pinnae 

 contract gradually in a long slender point. 



Plate 22. — Fig. 1.1a. Section of a pinna. 1 b. Section of the 



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