THE ANATOMY - AND AFFINITY OF STROM ATOPTERIS MONILIFORMIS, METT. 135 
Baker were merely indicating a wider possession of the above-mentioned characters 
of pinna and sorus than Mettenitjs had recognised in 1861. 
In 1893 attention was redirected by Poirault to the absence of roots in 
Stromatopteris (“ Recherches anatomiques snr les Cryptogames vasculaires,” Ann. Sc. 
Nat., vii, 18, p. 114), and in this connection he stated that, “with the exception of 
certain Trichomanes, all belonging to the section Hemiphlebium, and one of the 
Grleicheniace£e, Stromatopteris , and Salvinia, all the plants which come within the 
scope of our study are provided with roots.” In a footnote it was added that, “ as to 
Stromatopteris, that curious fern of New Caledonia, for which Mettenitjs has founded 
a special genus, I have examined a large number of specimens in the herbarium of 
the Museum (presumably in Paris), and on none, of them have I found roots.” It 
Text-fig. 1. 
seems improbable that both Mettenitjs and Poirault should have been misled on 
this point, for neither records incompleteness of axis in the specimens examined. 
The axis figured by Mettenius is apparently complete (text-fig. l), and shows an 
obliquely ascending and basally tapered portion, on which, if on any part, roots would 
most probably have been found. The conclusion seems justifiable that the oblique 
and tapered portion was in reality the axis of the young emancipated sporophyte. 
It has been noted that in 1874 the axis was described in the Synopsis Filicum as 
erect, but Boodle has informed me that the specimens in Kew Herbarium all appear 
incomplete below and devoid of roots, and it was on these that Hooker and Baker 
based their statement. And further, a specimen kindly lent for examination by 
Professor Balfour, F.R.S., is likewise basally incomplete and bears no roots. The 
date of collection of this specimen is 1893. The statement of the anatomy of 
Stromatopteris set forth in this memoir is based on two specimens collected by Le 
Boucher at Baie de Sud, New Caledonia, in 1903, and for which we are indebted to 
the Director of the National Herbarium of New South Wales. The axis in both of 
these is erect but incomplete. It bears no roots, and shows no sign of the basal 
tapering delineated by Mettenius. It follows, then, that the description of the 
