52 W. W. WATTS. 



pinnata l"-lJ"longa; segmenta secundaria £" - 1" longa, J — 

 V" lata, sessilia, linearia, margine attenuato vix revoluto; costa 

 tenera, proeminens; nervi distantes medio laminae furcati, apice 

 vix incrassati ; sori more Allosori, nervorum ramos occupantes, 

 basis ima nervorum sterilis, annulus verticalis incompletus basin 

 sporangii non attingens; paraphyses nullae; sporse magnse, pyra- 

 midataB, globosae. 



The main points of this description must be considered) 

 in order. 



1. The form of the vascular structure of the rhizome will 

 be referred to in connection with the question of the classi- 

 fication of the genus Neurosoria. 



2. The "conformity " of the sterile and the fertile leaves,, 

 the former being simply smaller than the latter, appears- 







to depend entirely upon Kuhn's data, which Bentham 1 

 quotes, while saying that he had not seen the barren fronds. 

 Bailey 2 follows Bentham, Personally, the writer has not 

 found a single sterile frond among the specimens he has 

 examined from the Queensland and the Victorian Herbaria. 

 In one case, some very small leaves were, at first, taken 

 to be sterile, but they proved, on closer examination, to be 

 fertile, like the larger ones. Kuhn, however, seems to : 

 have seen sterile leaves, and his testimony ("sterilia et 

 fertilia conformia") must be accepted, unless new material 

 should compel a revision of his conclusion. 



3. The evidence regarding the leaf-margin is somewhat 

 confusing. Robert Brown's original description was 

 "pinnulis . . . margine reflexis." Bentham's description 

 (loc. cit.) is, "a very narrow margin recurved over the 

 young sori." Bailey (Zoc. cit.) says "margin recurved over 

 the sori." But Kuhn, as will be seen above, says "margine 

 attenuato vix revoluto," and later in differentiating Neuro- 



1 Flora Austr., vii, p 780. 2 Fern World of Anstr., p. 74, (1881). 



