DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SPECIES 85 
13. Hemitelia capensis (Linn. fiL) Kl'f. 
Plate 7. Plant much reduced, b Pinnule, nat. size, d Capsule, 
magnified, c Abnormal pinna, nat. size, e Sorus. f Section of 
same, g Involucre. 
Stem erect, tree-like, five to fifteen feet in height, three 
to six inches in diameter, surmounted by a crown of most 
gracefully arching sub-membranaceous fronds, six to nine 
feet long, two to three feet broad, 3-pinnate or 3-pinnatifid, 
and tapering to both ends. When young the stipe and rachis 
are thickly set with short lanceolate, dark brown spreading 
scales, and the mid-rib of the pinnules and segments with 
shorter ovate pointed concave scales. As the frond gets older, 
these partially disappear. Pinnae twelve to eighteen inches 
long, four to six inches broad at the base; pinnules sessile, 
two to four inches long, half to three-quarter inch broad, cut 
almost to the mid-rib into strongly toothed, pointed, narrowly 
oblong segments, which bear one sorus each, placed on the 
lowest veinlet on the upper side. 
Fronds have a bare stipe of two feet or thereby, at the 
base of which arise a pair of abortive or skeletonised pinnae 
(fig. c), generally without any lamina, or with only a very 
little, but green and flaccid when young, and not resembling 
in the slightest degree the pinnae above. These abortive 
pinnae were mistaken by early botanists for distinct epiphytal 
ferns, and are believed to have been the Trichomanes incisum 
of Thunberg, though he distinguishes by the fructification the 
genus Trichomanes , of which this, which bears no sori, was 
his only species ; while Hemitelia is not included at all in his 
flora, unless his P olypodium capense be intended for it, and, if 
so, it is rather strange that the tree-like caudex should not be 
mentioned. Trichomanes cormophyllum Klfs is another name 
for the abnormal pinnae. 
Sori one line long, on a conical receptacle, and subtended 
on the side next the mid-rib by a small ovate or lobed scale, 
or involucre, hardly large enough to show from under the 
capsules, and frequently absent or falling off early, in conse- 
quence of which this species was formerly placed in the genus 
Alsophila, in which there is no involucre. Specimens from 
