ADIANTUM. 



309 



from any other known Fern. Its peculiar sub-orbicular (nearly circular) and 

 slightly undulated fronds, about lin. each way and cuneate (wedge-shaped) 

 at the base, are produced from small crowns furnished with only a few 

 fibrous roots of a peculiar downy or hairy nature, and are borne on tufted, 

 slender, polished stalks of a dark brown colour and about Jin. in length. 

 These fronds are of a membranous -pellucid (papery-transparent) texture ; the 



Fig. 45. Adiantum Parishii, showing Habit and detached Frond 

 (Habit, nearly nat. size ; Frond, slightly enlarged). 



barren ones are crenato -dentate (notched and toothed) all round, while 

 the fertile ones have from three to five lobes separated by deep sinuses 

 (depressions), in which the sparingly -produced spore masses are disposed. 

 See Fig. 45 (reduced • from Col. Beddome's "Ferns of British India," by the 

 kind permission of the author). — Hooker, Species Filicum, ii., p. 237, and 

 v., 3, t. 142a. 



A. patens — pattens (spreading), Willdenow. 



A stove species, native of Brazil and Mexico, readily distinguished from 

 all other species belonging to the Pedatum group through the large, horny, 

 sub-orbicular involucres (nearly circular coverings of the spore masses), which 

 are nearly Jin, in breadth and almost as deep. The fronds, borne on upright 

 stalks of a chestnut-brown colour, polished but slightly downy, are dicho- 

 tomously divided (their main divisions being branched once or twice again) : 



