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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLI 



Heoiinthostachys. 



Farmer & Freeman (On the Structure and Affinities of Hel- 

 minthostachys zeylanica, Ann. of Bot. 17, p. 421, 1899) state that 

 in Helminthostachys there is, as in Euophioglossum and Botry- 

 chium, a single leaf trace which afterwards divides into several, 

 usually seven or eight, within the petiole. As we have already 

 seen, although the spike in Helminthostachys arises apparently 

 from the base of the lamina, in reality its origin is lower down, and 

 it may be traced for a long distance below the insertion of the 

 sterile segments. 



In a section made near the base of the petiole, it appears almost 

 circular in outline with a ring of separate bundles. On the adaxial 

 side, however, there are two other bundles within the outer circle. 

 The number of bundles in the larger specimens collected by the 

 writer was decidedly greater than that given by Farmer & Freeman 

 (see Fig. 15, A). Higher 

 up the section is no longer 

 round, but slightly lobed, 

 indicating the bases of the 

 three branches of the ter- 

 nately divided lamina, and 

 on the adaxial side can be 

 plainly seen a fourth lobe, 

 which marks the position of 

 the spike. This is bound- 

 conspicuous bodies, the 

 sections of the wings that 

 extend down the petiole 

 from the lateral leaf lobes 

 7T ~' "• " ~= (Fig. 18.B&C). In this 

 region the separate bundles 

 of the basal part of the petiole are more or less coalescent, but the 

 two adaxial bundles remain separate and are those which later 

 extend into the spike. Still higher up the spike becomes more evi- 

 dent, and the two bundles belonging to it still more clearly separated. 

 In the free portion of the peduncle the two crescent shaped bundle 



