178 
ASPIDIACE^. 
ent, the auricle is larger in proportion to the pinnule and the 
lowest pinnule is often scarcely at all longer than the others. A. 
angulare Sm. — y. lohatum ; fronds narrowly lanceolate, pinnules 
decurrent often confluent, pinnule next the main rachis longer 
and larger than the others. Whole frond more rigid than in the 
other two varieties. Pinnules usually quite without auricles, not 
stalked but decurrent. Young plants often produce simply pin- 
nate rather weak and flexible fronds, with stalked ovate or ob- 
long simple pinnae having their base strongly auricled on the 
upper edge and oblique on the lower, thus approaching the fol- 
lowing species ; it is then the A. lohatum lonchitidoide^ of 
Hooker. — These three plants are so intimately connected by in- 
termediate forms that I cannot consider them to constitute more 
than one species.”'^ 
From a somewhat voluminous correspondence with British 
botanists, on the subject of these plants, I find there is a very 
general desire to maintain two species as distinct, but to omit 
the third or intermediate species. The characters recommended 
by my con*espondents are very various, and would divide a se- 
ries in a variety of ways, hence I feel reluctant to publish them. 
I must not, however, pass over in silence a very ingenious paper 
on this subject, which was read before the Botanical Society of 
London, on the 5th of November, 1841, and published in ^ The 
Phytologist’ on the 1st of December following. The author 
observes that owing to the difference of opinion entertained re- 
specting these ferns by botanists of celebrity — some considering 
them two distinct species, and others that they are merely vari- 
eties of one — any facts tending to bring to light their real cha- 
racter must be interesting ; and therefore he has much gratifi- 
cation in making known a peculiarity of structure exhibited by 
each, whereby he considers all doubt as to their being distinct 
species will be removed, 
‘‘ The two ferns, in their typical form, differ very materially 
from each other ; and their differences have been well described 
by those who have written on the subject. But almost all, if not 
the whole of the characters which have been set down as dis- 
* Manual of Brit. Bot. 386. 
