THE LEAF-TRACE IN SOME PINNATE LEAVES. 
3 
mountains and the sea, near Rio, there stretch narrow strips of sandy ground, 
known as “restingas” (cf Ule (’01) and Hemmendorf (’12)), on- which there grows 
a sclerophyllous vegetation (Loefgren, ’14), never attaining any great height and 
affording scant shade from the sun’s rays to a sparse undergrowth of straggling herbs. 
Next to the sea the restinga merges into loose sand, which supports a flora mainly 
composed of Ipomaea biloba, Forsk., Remirea maritima, Aubl., and a few Grasses 
{cf. Karsten and Schenck, ’03). Among the loose sand, on the seaward edge of the 
restinga at Gavea Beach, a few miles south of Rio, P. brasiliense was found, in 
a situation fully exposed for the whole day to the sun and swept by the breezes from 
the Atlantic Ocean. It was found again in a rather cool, shaded position, with 
water dripping from above, on the rock-face of a narrow gorge, close to the sea, at 
Praia de Leblond, between Gavea and Rio. With P. brasiliense on the forest-slopes 
of Monte Corcovado there were found P. loriceum, Linn., and P. decurrens, Raddi. 
P. catharinse, Langsd. et Fisch. — a species very closely resembling P. loriceum , — 
was collected on the restinga at Praia de Leblond ; while P. fraxinifolium, Jacq., 
which is closely similar to P. brasiliense , was found in the very rich rain-forest at 
Alto da Serra, between Sao Paulo and the coast at Santos : 
The other species collected were P. serrulatum (Sw.) Mett., a tiny, wiry-leaved 
form growing in the bed of a stream at Alto da Boa Vista, above Rio ; P. cultratum, 
Willd., a flaccid Fern with small, delicate pinnae, hairy on the under surface, found 
beside a stream at Alto da Serra, Sao Paulo ; P. lepidopteris (Langsd. et Fisch.) Kze., 
and P. plumula, H. B. Willd., with firm pectinate leaves, from rocks and wall-tops 
near Petropolis and Therezopolis ; and P. polypodioides (L.) Hitchcock, a small-leaved 
species from the bases of the Royal Palms in the Jardim Botanico at Rio. 
The leaves of P. brasiliense from the loose sand on Gavea Beach had tough and 
leathery pinnae, closely crowded on a leafstalk eight inches long (Plate, fig. 4) ; 
those from the gorge at Praia de Leblond were eighteen inches long and had narrow 
pinnae placed about one and a half inches from one another (Plate, fig. 3) ; in the 
forest the leaves of this species had thinner, -less leathery pinnae, spread, at distances 
of about an inch and a half from one another, over a shorter length of rachis, the 
total length of the leaf being about fifteen inches (Plate, fig. l). 
P. fraxinifolium, which is very nearly related to P. brasiliense, and which was 
found in the depths of the forest on the mist-clad slopes above Santos, had leaves 
about two feet in length. The pinnae were large, but more delicate in texture than 
those of P. brasiliense (even than those of the forest-grown form), and possessed 
“ drip-tips” (Plate, fig. 2). 
The Leaf -Traces and Pinna-Traces of the Brazilian Species of Polypodium. 
In all ten species of Polypodium the margin of the leaf-trace nearest to the pinna 
to be supplied is simply nipped off and passes into the pinna. This has been found 
to prevail in every leaf examined, and occurs in relation to every pinna, from base to 
