58 
THE FERN WORLD OF AUSTRALIA. 
large, hastato-tn'angular and pinnatifid. Primary veins proceeding 
obliquely from the midrib to the teeth or lobes, with secondary 
obliquely pinnate veinlets often anastomosing. Sori linear, on the 
secondary veinlets, with single or double indusia. Queensland ; 
Rockingham Bay, and Daintree Eiver. 
XXXI. — Cystopteris, Bernh. Bladder Fern. 
Delicate ferns, with twice or thrice pinnate fronds, with small 
dentate segments. Veins forked or pinnate, with free venules. Sori 
small, globular, attached to the concave base of an ovate indusium 
fixed on a venule at a distance from the margin. Name from two 
Greek words, of which the English name is a literal translation. 
C. fragilis, Bernh. The little bladder fern. Rhizome tufted, 
scaly. Fronds six to nine inches high, ovate-lanceolate or oblong 
in their outline, twice pinnate, the longest primary pinnae one to 
one and a half inches long, decreasing towards the ends, on a slender 
stipes without scales. Segments ovate or lanceolate, pinnatifid or 
dentate, with obtuse lobes or teeth. Sori several on each segment, 
at first enclosed in the indusium which is small and thin in the 
Australian form and soon disappears under the enlarged globular 
sori. On the wet rocks of Mount Olympus, and Lake St. Clair, 
Tasmania. 
XXXII. — AspiDiuM, Sw. Shield Fern. 
Rhizome thick and shortly erect, or creeping. Fronds twice or 
thrice pinnate or even more, while in some species (not Australian) 
the fronds are simple. Indusium orbicular, covering the sorus when 
young, attached by the centre or by a point or in a sinus on one 
side, so that when opened all round by the growth of the spore-cases 
it becomes peltate or more or less reniform. Name from aspis, a 
shield, from the form of indusium. 
A. cordifolium, Sw. Rhizome emitting wiry rooting fibres, 
which often bear fleshy tubers the size of a pigeon's egg, all beauti- 
fully clothed with linear-lanceolate transparent netted scales. 
Fronds pendulous from one to two or more feet long, simply pinnate. 
' Pinnae very numerous, often overlapping one another, approximate, 
sessile or nearly so, and articulate on the very scaly rhachis, oblong, 
rounded and usually denticulate at the end, about one inch long, 
obliquely cordate at the base, with the upper auricle much the 
largest, gradually smaller at the end of the frond, and the lowest 
pinnae short, broad and barren. Veins obliquely diverging from the 
costule or midrib of pinna, forked or branched. Sori terminating each 
upper branch, forming a row at some distance from the margin. 
Indusium reniform, very prominent, attached in a deep sinus. 
Found in many parts of Queensland, either growing among rocks 
or in the masses formed by epiphytes upon scrub trees ; very abun- 
dant upon the Glasshouse Mountains; also at Clarence and 
Richmond Rivers, and Lord Howe's Island, in N. S. "Wales. 
