114 



little plant, with a thread-like flexuose rachis, the hollows in the sin- 

 uosities of which form the open sinuses between the lobes. The barren 

 segments have no crenatures, and the vein is simple and falls unusually 

 much short of the margin. Though decurrent, the segments are not 

 confluent, so that the fronds are fully pinnate. Reward's plant of this 

 name is a small state of P. serpens, Swartz, which is common in the 

 district of Manchester parish where he collected. 



12. PJrichomanoides,Swartz. — Rootstock erect, 1-2 li thick, densely 

 coated with bright pale scales; stipites tufted, very short, furnished, 

 with a few spreading hairs ; fronds linear, 3-6 in. 1. 2-3^ li w., light 

 green, sparingly villose with long soft dark brown or reddish hairs ; 

 firm, stiffish, tapering usually to both ends; cut almost to the filiform 

 immersed rachis into spreading blunt oblong segments, which are 1-1£ 

 li. 1 and \— § li. w., decurrent at the base, with an oblique rounded or 

 acute sinus, and a space their own width, or less, between them, the 

 upperside in the soriferous fronds expanded near the base into a distinct 

 crenature or lobule, lower ones dwindling to mere teeth almost or quite 

 to the base of the stipites, veins obscure, one to each segment, not reach- 

 ing the edge, forked or producing a spur in the basal lobule which 

 bears the sorus. 



Common from 5,000 ft. to the highest alts., growing chiefly on trees. 

 The habit is erect and strict in short plants, but spreading shuttlecock- 

 like inthe taller ones ; the segments are half as long again as wide, oblong 

 in some cases, in others almost quarter oval, and open between. From 

 the species near it, the lobule on the upper side of the segments uni- 

 formly and clearly distinguishes it. 



13. P. basi-attenuatum, Jenm. n. sp. Stipites tufted from a small erect 

 scaly and fibrous rootstock, short if any clear of the attenuated decur- 

 rent wings of the fronds, slender, and freely villose ; fronds spreading 

 or subpendent, soft pale coloured, and clothed with copious long, soft, 

 spreading silky reddish brown hairs, 3-6 in. 1. 2-4 li. w., the apex blunt 

 and almost to the slender immersed rachis into oblong entire 

 rounded oblique segments, which are close in the greater part, but at 

 the much tapering base lax or subdistant, 1-2 li. 1. f-1 li. b , adnate, 

 decurrent and confluent at the base ; veins not reaching the edge, bear- 

 ing solitary sori near the base on the short anterior branch. 



Common above 5,000 ft. altitude on the branches of trees ; a much 

 softer plant than any of its allies from which it is further distinguish- 

 ed by its weaker habit, characteristically attenuated base of the fronds, 

 the oblong broadly rounded, unlobed segments, lying obliquely side by 

 side, so close that the base of each is not expanded; the longer softer 

 surface-hairs, which glisten in sunlight with a beautiful reddish ful- 

 vous hue and the usually larger sori. Hitherto ascribed to the main- 

 land P. truncicola, Klotzsch, a stiffly erect species with deltoid seg- 

 ments, set horizontally like the teeth of a saw, but possessing the same 

 beautiful soft silky vestiture. 



14. P. tcenifolium, Jenm. n.sp.-Rootstock fibrous, erect, stipites tufted, 

 several, in 1., pilose with spreading dark brown hairs ; fronds firm 

 in substance, strict, pellucid, dark green linear, 4—7 in 1. 2-3 li. w., 

 gradually reduced at the base pinnatifid to the slender black thread- 

 like rachis ; surfaces especially the margins clothed with spreading 

 dark brown hairs ; segments oblong rounder, § li. 1., \ li. w. close, 



