157 



■more deep ; the margins faintly crenulate, the rachis strong, light brown 

 and costae rather flexuose and tome ntose at the base ; veins forked ; fer- 

 tile fronds bi-tri- pinnate, the sori abundant occupying completely all 

 the pinnae ; pinnules close, 2-3 li. 1. cylindrical ; stipites and rachises 

 tomentose.— PL Fil. t. 155. Eat. Fer. N. Am. pi. 29. 



Infrequent in marshy and wet situations ; gathered in Salt Pond, 

 near Guava Eidge, beyond Gordon Town, where it is plentiful in beds 

 of Sphagnum, with Nephr odium unitum. Distinguished from other 

 species by the entirely separate barren and fertile fronds 



2. 0. regalis, G. — Stipites erect, caespitose from an erect simple 

 or fasciculate rootstock, a foot, more or less 1., flattened at the base, 

 brown or stramineous, channelled, naked ; fronds erect about as long as 

 the stipites, 4 - 8 or more in. w., bi-pinnate, subcoriaceous, naked, pale 

 green ; pinnae in 2 - serial opposite or sub-opposite pairs, sub-distant, 

 or distant, not sessile, 3 - 5 in. 1. IJ - 2| in. w , with a distinct terminal 

 segment ; pinnulae opposite or alternate, sessile and rounded at the base, 

 the point obtuse-acute, linear oblong, f - 1^ in. 1. J - J in w., 

 broadened or not toward the base ; margins faintly serrate ; veins free 

 twice forked, close curved, visible ; upper pinnae fertile, divided the 

 same as the barren ones, spikes ^ - f in. 1., sub-cylindric. — 0. spectabilis 

 Willd- 



The authority for the Jamaica habitat is taken from a specimen in 

 the British Museum Herbarium collected by Roger Shakespeare in 

 1777, and there ascribed to Jamaica. Shakespeare collected also on 

 the mainland, where this species is very widely and generally spread, 

 so that the Jamaica habitat may possibly be an error originated in a 

 transposed label : but as it is plentiful in the neighbouring island of 

 Cuba, only the fact that it has not turned up in the close scrunity be- 

 stowed by several collectors on the Jamaica ferns during the last half 

 century makes the locality at all doubtful. The tropical state is much 

 dwarfer than the ordinary temperate region one, varying from half to 

 one fourth the size, but the cutting and physiognomy are the same. It 

 is found usually at high elevations. 



Tribe XYII. SchiztEJE. 



Sporangia oval or oblong, sessile, attached by the base or side, open- 

 ing from top to bottom on the outer side, the apex rather contracted 

 striated and crownlike, sori on distinct much contracted branches, or 

 rarely separate fronds, naked or concealed by imbricating scales, or 

 partly by the membranous sub-revolute margin and filamentose scales. 



Of the five genera here connected four are represented in tropical 

 America and three of these in the West Indies. In all its primary 

 characters it is an exceedingly distinct Tribe, the sori being generally 

 in contracted panicles or racemose spikes, destitute of membrane, or in 

 marginal fringes. The two genera in which this is not the case are 

 both monotypic, and out of the range of this flora, one being Brasilian 

 and the other African. The sporan jia are remarkable for having the 

 ring in the form of a complete crown on the contracted apex. . 



Fertile appendages terminal on the fronds ; capsules attached by the 

 base ; bi-or quadri-serial in linear segments, the margins of which at 

 first more or less enclose them. — 



1. Schizsea. 



