DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SPECIES 79 
H. lineare Swartz. Schrad. Jour. 1800 ; Hk. and Bkr, Syn. Fil. 66 ; 
Sim, Ferns of S. Africa , 1st ed., 50. 
H. elegans Spr. Hk. Sp. 1, 91. 
H. trifidum. Hk. and Gr. Ic. Fil. t. 196. 
Found in the West Indies only. The closely allied H. 
capillare Desv. (Kuhn, Fil. Afr. 38) is from African islands. 
I have seen no South African specimen, but Lady Barkly 
and Buchanan give “ Macamac, Transvaal Gold Fields, speci- 
mens recently sent by Mr Ayres.” No further record has 
arrived. My description and figure are from imported 
specimens. 
10. Hymenophyllum TUNBRIDGENSE Smith. 
I 
Plate 3. Fig. 1. Nat. size, c Do., grown in shade, b Pinnule 
and involucre, enlarged. 
Rhizome slender, black, short-jointed. Frond tripinnatifid, 
little more than a series of winged veins, very irregular in 
outline, often triangular, six to eight lines long, four to six 
lines broad, but frequently lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, with 
the lower pinnae more or less reduced, and ranging up to four 
inches in length, one to one and a half inches broad. Stem 
not winged ; rachis narrowly winged in the upper half ; pinnae 
bipinnatifid, with a winged rachis, or in dwarf-grown speci- 
mens flabellate. Pinnules linear, one-third of a line broad, 
strongly toothed. Sori on the lower pinnules of the mid- 
pinnae, solitary, terminal on side pinnules. Involucre cut to 
the base into two flattened, circular, semi-divergent, strongly 
toothed lobes; between which is the globular mass of capsules 
on a short receptacle. 
This is a little beauty, growing in dense masses several 
feet square, on or near the solid rock in the Forest region. 
During dry weather the masses of this look like carpets of 
nearly black shrivelled moss, but when transferred to a moist, 
close position, and kept constantly damp (as in Mr Mar- 
quardt’s fern grotto, Cape Town), it develops into a much 
larger and more delicate plant, of a pellucid light green 
colour, quite unlike its former self, and unequalled, in fragile 
beauty, by any other fern we have. 
