ieee 
and illustrates them as being petiolate and without cilies round the base, which I, 
however, cannot confirm; they are castaneous, and patently toothed. The vascular 
parts of the whole leaf are throughout densely and softly pilose by long, articulated, 
flexible hairs, while the leaf-tissue of both sides are practically glabrous. The ter- 
tiary, obtuse or acute segments are almost all lobed halfway down into close, trun- 
cate, somewhat falcate lobes. The midvein of an adnate posterior segment of an 
upper pinnula springs out near the base of the costule. 
While the specimens from Venezuela and Jamaica are so much more 
hairy than D. villosa, most specimens from Ecuador are often subglabrous and 
those from Guatemala (var. Heydei n. var.) are entirely without long hairs. The 
long hairs are evidently easily deciduous and older leaves, therefore, glabrescent. 
These subglabrous forms do not otherwise differ at all from the more villous form; 
they may be distinguished from D. subincisa by the larger size, long-acuminated pin- 
nules and by the proportionally narrower and longer tertiary segments, which are 
deeply lobed throughout. D. Karsteniana is so closely related to D. villosa, that I 
understand that JENMAN considered it an exindusiate variety of it. There is, how- . 
ever, no evidence of the existence of intermediate forms, and it is no doubt a valid 
species. Its occurrence in Jamaica shows once more the close relation of the floras 
of that island and of the northern Andes. 
Jamaica, Harr nr. 115 (W): below New Haven Gap, UnpeRwoop nr. 3154 (W). 
Costa Rica, WeRcKLE (RB, type of A. erythrostemma Christ). 
Venezuela: Tovar, Moritz nr, 459 (B, S); Karsren nr. II. 3 (B); FENDLER nr. 447 (Kew); Merida, 
Funck et Scuuim nr. 975 (L = Ph. hirsuta Fée). 
Colombia: between Popayan et. Mt. Huila, Sripex nr. 144 (B). 
Ecuador: Tunguragua, Spruce nr. 5257 (Kew), 5257 A (H, Kew, L, S) 
pt. (RB); Chimborazo and other localities, Soprro (RB, glabrescent forms = Nephr. amplum 
Sod. pro parte) 
var. Heydei n. var. Glabrous; in a dried state nearly black above. 
Guatemala: Rio de los Esclavos, Dept. Santa Rosa, Heypr et Lux ed. J. D. S. nr. 3249 (W — distri- 
buted as Nephrodium amplum Bak.). 
A fragment of an apparently large leaf from Colombia: Andes de Subia, 
2500 m. Mayer no. 9, received from Dr. Rosenstock belongs probably to a distinct, 
undescribed species, allied to D. Karsteniana. It is similar in cutting and pubescence, 
but the long hairs are remarkable swollen at base, about as the hairs of Urtica 
urens; they leave raised points when falling. 
Obs. Mr. Maxon suggests in a note that the Jamaican specimens referred above 
to D. Karsteniana may belong to the species that is illustrated on Plumier’s plate 34, 
upon which both Polypodium. pulverulentum Poir. Ene. 5: 555. 1804 and Aspidium 
lutescens Willd. sp. 5. 272. 1810 were founded. It is possible, and it is true that 
the plate gives a rather accurate figure of the Jamaican fern. Still D. Karsteniana 
is till now not found in Santo Domingo, where PLumierR gathered his plant, and 
his description of it as being »lulescens« below seems best to agree with D. ampla, 
S); prope Pisum, MILLE nr. 114 
