TODEA. 



351 



T. (Leptopteris) grandipinnula — Lep-top'-ter-is ; gran-dip-in'-nul-a 

 (having large leafits), Moore. 



Although a home-raised plant, this very remarkable Fern — undoubtedly 

 the most transparent of the whole genus — is so very similar to T. Moorei, of 

 Baker, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish one from the other. 

 We have consequently considered it more satisfactory to reproduce Thomas 

 Moore's description and the comments he published when the plant first 

 made its appearance : 



" This handsome Fern sprang up in one of Messrs. J. Veitch and Sons' 

 houses, under conditions that render it probable it may be of hybrid origin ; 

 in fact, it originated in the close neighbourhood of T. Fraseri, which had been 

 standing in company with T. hymenophylloides, and several distinct forms were 

 noticed among the seedlings which sprang up in this position, most of them 

 being of a semi-depauperated character. The present, however, proved to be 

 from the first a fast grower, with a singularly leafy development, which gives 

 to it an aspect quite unlike that of any other known species or variety of 

 this remarkable genus. The obvious and characteristic peculiarity of the 

 plant is the broad leafy aspect of the fronds, in which both leaflets and leafits 

 are very much overlapped at the edge in consequence of their free growth, 

 both of them being broad -egg- shaped in form and unequal in development, 

 so that both fronds and leaflets are irregular and unsymmetrical in outline. 

 Whether it be regarded as a hybrid form with the parentage above suggested, 

 or whether it is a foliose sport from T. hymenophylloides, which may possibly 

 be the case, it is a novelty for the Fern-house, and one deserving the full 

 appreciation of the cultivator. 



" The fronds, which are broadly-egg-shaped in outline and tripinnate 

 (three times divided to the midrib), are borne on green, circular stalks 

 6in. to 9in. long and almost naked. Their leafy portion, composed of sessile 

 (stalkless) leaflets, is 1ft. to lift, long, and their oblong- egg- shaped leafits, 

 closely set and overlapping, are deeply cleft; their lobes, distinctly wedge- 

 shaped, have their blunt extremity cut into two or three bluntish teeth or 

 sometimes into short linear segments. The spore masses are disposed on 

 the basal undivided portion of the veins." 



To the foregoing remarks we may add that, although a fairly large batch 

 of seedlings, all exactly resembling each other, were raised first, we have been 



