CHAPTER XXXV, 



LOXSOMA, Brown. 

 (Lox-so'-ma.) 



EW ZEALAND furnishes the only species of this genus, which, 

 with Hymenophyllum and Trichomanes, goes to make up the 

 tribe Hymenophyllece. Through its habit, as well as through 

 the pecuhar texture of its foliage, the plant bears no resem- 

 blance whatever to the other Hymenophyllece. In Hooker 

 and Baker's "Synopsis Filicum " . >xsoma forms Genus 15. It derives its 

 name from loxos^ oblique, and soma, a body, on account of its sporangia 

 (spore-cases) being girt by an incomplete ring. As in some of the other 

 Hymenophyllece, the sori (spore masses) of Loxsoma are marginal, produced at 

 the extremity of a vein, and disposed in the sinuses (depressions) of the teeth 

 or lobes of the fertile portions of the fronds, and their receptacle, which is 

 elongated and much exserted (thrust out), hke those of Trichomanes and 

 certain species of Hymenophyllum, are clothed to their extremity with stipitate 

 (stalked) capsules (mixed with jointed hairs), which have a short, broad, 

 incomplete, oblique ring opening vertically. 



Culture. 



Very little can be said with certainty on the culture of this remarkable 

 Fern, for, although we have frequently had the opportunity of unpacking 

 dead specimens, it has never been our good fortune to see it under 



