(no) A NEW JAPANESE ACROSTICHUM. 



The rhizome is woody and furnished with branched roots which are to- 

 mentose with dark-brown hairs. Its transverse section shows a few narrow and i 

 curved vascular bundles, often forming a nearly complete ring by the union of 

 their edges. The thickest rhizomes in my collection are 5 to 8 mm. in diame- 

 ter; but the rest are more slender. The scales which clothe the rhizome as 

 well as the base of the stipe are ovate, brown, and ciliate at the margin; they 

 are 4 or 5 mm. long and 2 or 3 mm. broad. The stipes are clustered towards 

 the apex of the rhizome, rather stout, and comparatively short in the sterile 

 and long in the fertile fronds. In their upper part they are flattened, winged, 

 and canaliculate in front. They are densely covered with deciduous scales at 

 the base, but more sparingly so above, the scales also becoming narrower as 

 the decurrent margins of the frond become broader. The transverse section of 

 the stipe towards the base shows a somewhat semicircular outline with thd 

 rounded part at the back, a thick ring of sclerenchyma within the cortical pa- 

 renchyma, and, within the sclerenchymatous layer, five oval sections of vascular 

 bundles arranged in a semicircle in the medullary parenchyma, two of which 

 placed between the other three are considerably smaller. In small speci- 

 mens the two small vascular bundles are wanting. The cortical paren- 

 chyma consists of two or three layers of compact cells in stipes of ordinary size, 

 but of one layer in small stipes. In the medullary parenchyma the cells are 

 larger and more loosely put together than in the cortical, and with rather large 

 interstices. The sterile fronds are much more numerous than the fertile; each 

 stock seems to have but one of the latter. The sterile fronds are about 0.6 

 mm. thick, minutely punctato-squamulose on the surface under the lens, scatter- 

 ed with appressed and irregularly branched hairs or narrow scales especially 

 on the back towards the base. On the back of the costa are scales, which are. 



