CHAPTER XXXII 



L L A V E A, Lagasca. 

 (Lla'-ve-a.) 



Mexican Flowering Fern. 



HE memory of M. la Llave, the discoverer of the species, is 

 perpetuated in this genus, which in Hooker and Baker's 

 " Synopsis Filicum " forms Genus 28, immediately following 

 Onyckium. It somewhat resembles that genus so far as the 

 fructification is concerned, but there ends the comparison. It 

 is composed of a solitary species, also known in gardens as Ceratodactylis 

 osmwidioides : this latter name, for which we are indebted to J. Smith, is 

 derived from keras, a horn, and dactylos, a finger, in allusion to the fertile 

 divisions of the frond, which are only the terminal part of the barren ones. 

 The specific name osmundioides is indicative of the similarity in appearance 

 between this species and Osmunda. The distinctive characters of Llavea 

 reside in the peculiar division of the barren and fertile portions of the same 

 frond, as above stated, and also in the nature of the sori (spore masses), which 

 are linear (long and very narrow), occupying the whole length of the pod- 

 like segments of the changed upper portion of the frond ; their involucre 

 (covering) is of the same shape, rolled over and completely covering them. 



Culture. 



Although an old inhabitant of our gardens, L. cordifolia is unfortunately 

 seldom found in collections. The fact of its being generally grown in too 

 warm a place, explains the speedy death of specimens which, under cooler 



