IOO 
The Ferns of South Africa. 
Glib, and in the Albany Museum, collected by Sir H. Barkly, 
and those in Mr. Bolus’ Herbarium, collected by himself. Both 
are from foot of Kamiesberg, Namaqualand. 
P. namaquensis. Bkr. in Jour, of Botany, July 1874 ; and Annals of 
Botany, Vol. V., No. 18, April 1891. 
47. Pell^ea involuta. Baker. 
Plate XXXVII. Natural size. 
Rhizome shortly creeping or tufted, with linear, shining, light 
brown, hair-pointed scales. Frond four to nine inches long, two 
to three inches broad, lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, two- 
pinnatifid or sometimes three-pinnatifid, on a channelled, brown 
stipe, equal in length to the frond. Stipe, rachis, and mid-ribs 
set with soft, spreading, hair-like, yellowish scales, very abundant 
below. Pinnae one to one and a half inches long, plain, deltoid, 
hardly equal sided, cut to or near the rachis into entire oblong 
lobes, having a broad attachment, or the lower ones pinnatifid 
with one to four pairs of lobes ; upper pinnae less divided, more or 
less confluent. Texture firmly herbaceous ; pinnae glabrous on 
both surfaces, and edged by the narrow, white, membranous, 
intramarginal, and early reflexed, entire, but often undulated indu- 
sium. I cannot distinguish from this the Natal specimens in 
which the scales of the stipe are adpressed, more rigid, and brown, 
and the pinnules rounded at the base or almost stalked. These 
are the P. Bojeri of Buchanan’s list, and of Wood’s Natal Ferns. 
This is a badly understood and most confusing plant. I find 
difficulty in drawing a line between it and P. hastata, var. glauca. 
Buchanan found the same difficulty, while Lady Barkly and Pappe 
and Rawson included both here, and the Graaffreinet specimens 
identified as this at Kew approach var. glauca very closely. The 
paleaceous stipe and rachis less divided, less triangular, and more 
plain frond, characterize this plant, which appears to be rather 
rare though widely spread. The connection with P. consobrina is 
much more distant, but P. namaquensis is very close. 
