CHAPTER XLIIL 



NEPHROLEPIS, Schott. 

 (Neph-roF-ep-is.) 



Ladder Ferns. 



N Hooker and Baker's " Synopsis Filicum " Neplirolepis forms 

 Genus 45, immediately following Neplirodium. Its name is 

 derived from nephros, a kidney, and lepis, a scale, in reference 

 to the coverings of the sori (spore masses), which ai-e round, 

 arising from the upper branch of a vein, generally near the 

 edge. All the known species, and with very few exceptions their varieties, 

 have their fronds simply pinnate (only once divided to the midrib). These 

 leaflets, instead of being fastened to the rachis (midrib of the leafy portion), 

 are articulated at the base, often very deciduous in the dried plants, and 

 show white dots of a chalky nature on their upper surface. As regards its 

 geographical distribution, this genus, which comprises little more than a dozen 

 species, belts the world in the Tropics, passing a little beyond them both 

 north and south. It has no British representative. 



From Eaton's excellent work, " Ferns of North America " (vol. ii., p. 130), 

 we extract the following most valuable information : " The genus Neplirolepis 

 was proposed in 1834, by H. W. Schott, for those species of Nephr odium or 

 Aspidium which had a reniform indusium (kidney-shaped covering of the spore 

 masses) obliquely affixed by its emarginate (notched) base to the side of the 

 enlarged tip of the fertile vein. He gives excellent analytical drawings of 

 N. exaltata, and mentions N. pectifiata, hiserrata, &c., as also examples of his 

 genus. In the ' Tentamen Pteridographite ' of Presl, two years later, the genus 



