CHAPTER XXVIIL 



HYPOLEPIS, Bernhardi. 

 (Hyp-oF-ep-is.) 



LTHOUGH Hooker, in Ms " Species Filicum," enumerates some 

 thirty species, Presl, in Ms " Tantamen PteridograpMa^," 

 describes ten species, and Fee, in his " Genres de la Famille 

 des Polypodiacees," gives over twenty species, this genus, 

 closely allied to Cheilanthes^ as it is accepted now, comprises 

 only about a dozen species of Ferns of medium and large dimensions, all 

 furnished with creeping rhizomes (decumbent stems). It derives its name 

 from under, and lepis^ a scale, in allusion to the marginal covering 



pecuhar to the inferior sporange (lower spore capsule), and in Hooker's 

 " Synopsis Fihcum " forms Genus 24. The distinctive characters of the plants 

 which have been retained in this genus reside in the non-confluent nature 

 of their uniform, roundish, marginal, small sori (spore masses) and in their 

 invariably being placed in the sinuses (notches) of the ultimate divisions 

 of the frond ; also in the involucre, of the same shape as the sorus 

 wMch it covers, being membranous in texture and formed out of the 

 reflexed margin. 



Culture. 



All the known species of Hypoleijis are indigenous in either warm or 

 temperate climates — TrojDical America and the West Indies as well as New 

 Zealand, Cape Colony, and California : the genus has no British representative. 



