76 
TRICHOMANES membranacea. 
Membranaceous Bristle-Fern. 
CRYPTOGAMIA FILICES._Nat. Ohd. FILICES. 
Gen. Char Sorus marginalis receptaculo columnari saepius setiformi in- 
sertus. Indiisinm urceolato-campanulatum, monophyllum, erectum, so- 
rum includens. — W. 
Trichomanes membranacea; frondibus subsessilibus oblongis flabelli- 
formibusque integris incisisve, basi cuneatis, marginibus (sterilibus) 
peltato-squamosis. 
T. membranacea, Linn. Sp. PL p. 1560.--Swartz, Syn. Fil. p. 141.— Sw. 
Fl. Ind. Occ. V. iii. p. 1724.— Willd. Sp. PI v. 5. p. 499.— Smith, 
Rees' Cyclop. 
Filix Hemionitis Lichenoides americana fungi auriculis Caesalpini aemula, 
radice repente, Pluk. Aim. p. 155. t. 285. f. 3. 
Caudex several inches in length, creeping, flexuose, tomentose, brown, throw- 
ing out several branched and somewhat downy fibrous roots. Fronds several 
from the caudex, varying remarkably in size, and scarcely less so in form, 
from half an inch to three inches long, oblong or fan-shaped or rounded, 
with their margins nearly entire, or cut into more or less deep, oblong 
and very irregular laciniae ; the base, however, always cuneate and entire. 
In the sterile fronds, and in the sterile segments of the fertile ones, the 
margin is beset with numerous small, peltate, umbilicated, pale brown, 
sessile, membranaceous scales, which appear to be either abortive invo- 
lucres, or themselves young fructifications, and corresponding with the 
membranaceous lips of the involucres. The structure of this frond is 
extremely delicate and beautiful, composed of numerous slender veins 
which diverge or radiate from the narrow base towards the circumfe- 
rence, while the spaces between them are occupied with smaller and 
even more delicate transverse veinlets or bars. The color is a glossy 
brownish green or olive, and the whole has not unaptly been compared 
by Sir James Smith to a Bat's wing. 
Involticres (indusia, W.) at the extremity of the segments of the frond, nu- 
merous, narrow, urceolate, thick and fleshy, immersed in the frond, and 
nothing appearing beyond it but the two submembranaceous lips, form- 
ing the somewhat expanded mouth. Sari inclosed within the urceolus, 
inserted upon the somewhat swollen base of the long, much protruded, 
VOL. I. 
