Observations on the Flora of Japan. 



{Continued from p. 295.) 



By 



T. Makino. 



Lecliirer of Botany in the Sciend'. College, 

 Imperial University, Tokyo. 



Alsophila acaulis Making, sp. noA^ 



An acaulesceiit fern. Rhizome horizontally repent on surface 

 of ground, rooting, thick, attaining about 3icm. across, 32 cm. 

 in length, usually simple or rarely dichotomous, usually more 

 or less curved, or tortuous, covered with very thick prominent 

 leaf-scars throughout, with a tuft of the present and old stijjes 

 at the apical end ; scars truncate and usually excavated, marked 

 with the prominent ends of the several old vascular-bundles, 

 dark-brown ; roots often dense, hard, fibrous, dark, with short 

 rootlets, more numerous on the under side. Frond bipinnate. 

 40-90 cm. long, 20-54 cm. broad (much smaller ones also 

 often soriferous), ovate, wide-ovate, or narrowly ovate in 

 outline, long-acuminate, firmely membranaceous, deep-green 

 (dark-green when dry) above, paler (brownish-olivaceous when 

 dry) beneath. Stipes castaneo-badious, erect but ascendmg 

 from the end of the rhizome at the base, tufted (2-5), elongate, 

 slender, shorter or more or less longer than the frond, sub- 

 tetragono-terete, hispidulous with hairs like in the rachis m 

 front (hairs gradually laxer towards the base), at first sea y 

 then glabrate and subscabrous or asperous with thinly 

 dispersed elevated minute points dorsally, attaining about 

 2-10 decim. long, densely scaly at the base ; scales fulvous 

 but dark-yellow through light, subulate, attenuatedly 

 acuminate, suddenly broader towards the 



less brittle, 



membr; 

 uloso-denticu] 



