50 



THE FERN BULLETIN 



evolving some system in their naming as the subjoined 

 notes from the British Fern Gazette would indicate. 

 If these names can be made to designate definite ap- 

 pearances they will certainly be extremely useful in 

 bringing a given form to mind. 



Much confusion exists in the naming of the simpler 

 crested forms as regards the extent of tasselled divis- 

 ion and its character. Broadly speaking it falls into 

 two sections : flat fan-like division and bunch division. 

 The flat cresting may be roughly graded thus : simply 

 forking, furcatum or furcans when confined to two or 

 three divisions; digitatum or fingered up to five or six; 

 polydactum up to ten; multifurcatwni up to a score; all 

 these divisions terminating in points and not dividing 

 again and all spreading out in the same plane — fan- 

 fashion. If the primary divisions fork again we get 

 true cristate or crested forms and, still adhering to the 

 flat expansion, we may term them cristatulum, crista- 

 tum or, in the case of divided ferns, percristatum if 

 the pinnules as well as the frond tip and pinnae are 

 crested. When the flat mode of expansion is replaced 

 by a sort of radiating division producing tufts or 

 bunches they become corymbiferous — corymbiferum 

 — and when these are large and heavy the grand iceps 

 form is attained provided the terminal bunch of the 

 fond is so characterized. An extreme form of this 

 producing dense ball-like crests m?y be termed 

 globosum. All these terms apply to fronds whose 

 midribs are not otherwise divided than at the tips, but 

 when these split lower down into branches this char- 

 acter is indicated by ranwsiuu, ramossimum, ramulo- 

 sissimum or, in extreme cases conglomeratum. This 

 ramose character is indicated in compound varieties 

 i. e. in which other characters occur in conjunction 



