— 6o— 



This fern was first described by the well known English 

 pteridologist, Mr. Baker, after the specimen of Rev. Powell col- 

 lected in Samoa island in July of 1864, and reported in the 

 Journal of Linnean Society of London (Baker, Journal of Linnean 

 Society, ix, p. 336, pi. 8, fig. 4). 



The plant has a very small frond more or less orbicular in 

 shape, about 2-3 cm. each way, and is attached without stalk to 

 a very slender, wiry rhizome near its middle. The rhizome and 

 the under surface of the frond are covered with fine black hairs. 

 The fronds grow flat, closely adhering to the surface on which 

 they grow, overlapping each other, so that the rhizomes are quite 

 hidden. 



When Mr. Makino found the plants covering a rock with their 

 dark green colored fronds, he first took them for some frondose 

 Jungermannia. It seems that the first discoverer of this plant 

 found it on the bark of a tree, for Hooker writes as follows: " 'The 

 different branches of the candex,' writes the discoverer, 'run 

 upwards, but so closely together that the margins of the fronds 

 overlap each other. The fronds all lie flat upon the tree, so that 

 the whole fern has much the appearance of a delicate foliaceous 

 lichen or frondose Jungermannia' " 



The following description is quoted from Baker with little 

 modification: Rhizome wiry, slender, wide- creeping, tomentose; 

 fronds quite sessile, attached to the rhizome near the centre or 

 towards the base, suborbicular in general outline, 1-3 cm. across 

 each way, quite depressed to the surface on which they grow, 

 and conspicuously overlapping one another, bright to darker 

 green and delicately membranaceous in texture; the margin 

 somewhat undulated, and sometimes rather deeply cleft in a 

 direction from the circumference to the centre ; the veins brown- 

 ish and closely placed, one to several times dichotomous at a 

 small angle, with numerous interrupted spurious veins between 

 them at the margin and towards the centre ; sori scattered, one 

 to four in number; involucres cylindrical, firm in texture, more 

 or less exserted, with a very much dilated slightly two-lipped 

 mouth. 



It seems that Mr. Makino's specimen is somewhat smaller 

 than that of Mr. Baker's, and the former is dark green while 

 fresh instead of being bright green as Mr. Baker described. 

 Botanical Institute, Imperial University, Tokyo, Japan, March. 1899. 



