242 



F I L I C E S. 



Hab. Ovolau and Sandalwood Bay, Feejee Islands : on trunks of 

 trees, at the altitude of 2,000 feet. 



Rootstock very long and creeping, the surface closely imbricated 

 with oblong and caudate-acuminate, brown scales, attached by a point 

 at their middle. Stipes about 3 inches long, naked, nearly round, 

 with a very shallow groove in front. Fronds distant, coriaceous and 

 smooth, of a broad-ovate acuminate form, and quinate, or more usually 

 pinnate, of a glossy silver hue on the under surface, above of a dark 

 green and scarcely shining. Pinnce subopposite, spreading, from 5 to 

 9 in number, linear-lanceolate, attenuate, cuneate at the base, the inferior 

 pair petiolate and almost always binate; the margin of the sterile 

 pinnce entire, except about an inch at the point, which is serrate; the 

 fertile bluntly toothed, and soriferous for about two-thirds of their 

 length, furnished with a single sorus on each tooth ; the truncate apex 

 of the tubular indusium nearly equal with the edge of the tooth, 

 beyond which the older sporangia project a little. Rhachis com- 

 pressed and margined ; the forked veins, though sunken, are still per- 

 ceptible to the naked eye, giving to the surface of the fronds a 

 slightly striated appearance. 



Plate 35. — Fig. 1. Portion of a plant, of the natural size. 1 a. 

 Dorsal view of a section of a pinna. 1 b. Section of the rootstock. 

 1 c. Scale from the rootstock. 1 d. A single sorus, with the special 

 indusium removed. 1 e. Sporangium. 1/. Sporules. — The details 

 more or less magnified. 



4. Davallia pycnocarpa, Sp. Nov. (Tab. 35.) 



D. rhizomate repente crinito-paleaceo ; stipitibus nudis semiteretibus ; 

 frondibus deltoideo-ovatis coriaceis glabris quinato-pinnatis ; pinnis 

 subsessilibus, sterilibus lanceolatis serrulatis, fertilibus lineari-lanceo- 

 latis obtusis, infimis uni-bilobatis margine duplicato-dentatis a basi 

 usque ad apicem creberrime soriferis ; indusio oblongo apice truncate; 

 sporangiis subexsertis; venis immersis simplicissimis vel furcatis. 



Hab. Muthuata Mountains, Feejee Islands : on rocks and trunks 

 of trees. 



