DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SPECIES 
3i7 
Division II. Marattiales. 
ORDER IV. MARATTIACEAE. 
Genus 54. Marattia Swartz. 
Capsules united in a double line into a concrete sorus. 
Sori on the back of ordinary pinnae. Vernation circinate. 
A small tropical genus of about 20 species ; rare in South 
Africa. 
194. Marattia fraxinea Sm. 
Plate 173. Pinna, nat. size. 
Crown erect, large, irregular. Frond two-pinnate, coria- 
ceous, glabrous, four to six feet long, two to three feet broad, 
with a very stout paleaceous stipe, one to two feet long, 
swollen at the baseband articulated to the crown. Pinnae 
one to two feet long, one foot broad, with a terminal pinnule, 
and numerous similar opposite sessile pinnules, only slightly 
reduced upward, and with a margined or winged rachis. Pin- 
nules four to six inches long, one-half to one inch broad, 
lanceolate, rounded below, sharply toothed along the edges, 
and tapering to a rather long, toothed point. Mid-rib distinct, 
other veins parallel, simple or forked, with clavate apices. 
Sori (synangia) oblong or linear, parallel, in a straight line 
near the margin. Some of Baur’s specimens, and also Flana- 
gan’s 2476, have the pinnules pinnatifid, or rather bearing 
beyond their usual breadth occasional lobes half inch long, 
quarter inch broad, with several sori in each. Kuhn calls 
our plant M. salicifolia Schr., and separates it by its narrow 
pinnules from M. fraxinea Sm., which he allows as far south 
as Angola and Madagascar. Baker unites these, and Chris- 
tensen separates them. Most specimens have narrow pinnules, 
but some have them one inch broad, and the young plants 
I have seen in growth were so. Kuhn also places here (as 
sterile fronds) Pteris cuspidata Thunb. (Prod. 17 1; Pappe and 
Rawson, 51; Schl. Adum. 46). 
M. fraxinea. Smith, PI. Icon, ined., 2, tab. 48 ; Beddome, tab. 79 ; 
Gmel. Syst. Nat. d 1 1294 (1791); Hk. and Bkr, Syn. Fit. 440; Sim, 
Ferns of S. Afr ., 1st ed., 235; C. Chr. Ind. 414. 
