DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SPECIES 
267 
Genus 39. V ITT ARIA J. Sm. 
Sori sunk into the frond in a long line near each margin 
and without indusium. Frond simple, grass-like, with several 
veins anastomosing in young barren fronds, or united by the 
capsule-bearing marginal veins. A small tropical genus 
mostly epiphytal. 
152. VlTTARIA ISOETIFOLIA Bory. 
Plate 149. Fig. 1. Nat. size. 
Rhizome procumbent, stout, short, epiphytal, densely set 
with linear black scales. Frond two to twenty inches long, 
two lines broad, pendulous, thickly sub-coriaceous, glabrous, 
dark green, grass-like, with a blunt apex, prominent mid-rib, 
and narrowed very gradually into the firmer short green stipe. 
Sori in a line near each margin, often extending the whole 
length of the frond, sunk into its substance without any raised 
edges. Veins obscure, nearly parallel, free, or united to the 
soriferous marginal vein, or in the rather wider and more 
herbaceous barren fronds of young plants forming several 
areolae. Possibly young plants of this gave rise to the Cape 
locality for Monogramtna gramiaea Schk. 
The separation and synonymy of the species of Vittaria are 
exceedingly difficult and confused, though elaborately mono- 
graphed by Fee. Baker includes V. isoetifolia in V. elongata 
Sw., and separates that into a separate section Eu-vittaria, 
having “sori sank into a two-lipped marginal groove ,” while 
V. lineata Sw. and V. scolopendrina Thw. he places in section 
Taeniopsis, having “sori in a slightly intramarginal line , zvith 
the unaltered edge of the frond produced beyond and often rolled 
over it ” ; and he includes all three as African, V. lineata Sw. 
being his name for the South African plant. Christensen 
confines V. lineata (L.) to trop. America, but maintains V. 
isoetifolia Bory and V. scolopendrina Bory, and indicates both 
as being represented in South Africa. 
Vittaria isoetifolia. Bory, Voy. 2, 325 (1804); Kuhn, Fil. Afr. 55; 
Burchell, No. 5838; C. Chr. Ind. 654. 
Vittaria lineata Sw. Schl. Adum. 33 ; Kze, Linnaea, 10,572; Pappe 
