8 
DOODIA ASPERA. 
Rigid Doodia. 
CRYPTOGAMIA FILICES— Nat. Oed. FILICES, Div. Gyratje, Br. 
Gen. Char. — Sori lunulati vel lineares, seriati, costae paralleli. Involucrum 
e ramulo anastomosante venae ortum, planum, intus liberum. — Br. 
Frondes caespitosae, pinnatae, pinnis dentatis quandoque coadunatis. Scrri 
interdum biseriati. — Br. 
Doodia aspera; frondibus lanceolatis pinnatifidis, laciniis lineari-ensi- 
formibus acuminatis spinuloso-serratis, soris lunulatis, distinctis, pas- 
sim biseriatis, stipite rachique asperis. — Br. 
D. aspera. Brown, Prod. Fl. Nov. Holl. p. 151. 
Every part of this plant is singiJarly rigid. The frmds, about 8 inches in 
length, grow in a tufted manner, but spreading out with their extremi- 
ties in all directions; their form is lanceolate, attenuated at the base and 
at the extremity, terminating below in a short stipes, beset with stiff, 
hard, black, mostly reversed scales, as is the back of the rachis, dark 
green : these fronds are deeply pinnatifid, the pinnce or segments linear- 
ensiform, the terminal one thrice as long as the rest, all with a central 
rib and many nerves branching off from it, which ramify and anasto- 
mose with each other ; the margins spinuloso-serrate, and nearly every 
other spinule reflexed. Sori, or clusters of fructification, oblong, bursting 
from a branch of the veins which runs parallel with the central rib, and 
IS about half-way between it and tjie margin. Involucre lunulato-ob- 
long, plane, opening internally, and then exhibiting a number of sphe- 
rical, reticulated, annulated, and pedunculated capsules. Seeds spheri- 
cal. 
The genus Doodia is peculiar to New Holland, and was 
named by our learned countryman Mr Brown, in honour of 
Samuel Doody, one of our earliest investigators of Crypto- 
gamic Plants. One of its species, Z). caudata, has been ar- 
ranged by Cavanilles and Willdenow under Wood- 
wardia, from which the present genus differs in its plane (not 
fornicate) involucre, unconnected at its inner margin, and 
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