J 54 
The Ferns of South Africa. 
Var. tripinnatum. Baker. 
Plate LXXX. Natural size. 
Larger and more cut throughout than the type, also less coria- 
ceous, and less paleaceous. Frond five to nine inches broad, one 
and a half to two and a half feet long, with a stipe six to nine 
inches long, three-pinnatifid. Pinnae shortly stalked, deltoid, one 
and a half inches broad, three to four inches long, with woolly 
scales on the lower side only. Pinnules distinct, deltoid, shortly 
stalked, pinnately cut to the mid-rib into five to seven cuneate, or 
flabellate, three-lobed, toothed pinnules. The stipe and rachis 
are abundantly fibrillose, and the channelled, slightly margined, 
rachises of the pinnae, and the under side of the pinnae, are also 
more or less fibrillose, but the upper surface is generally almost 
naked and shining. In deep shade it is sometimes nearly destitute 
of scales throughout, and quite herbaceous in lexture ; but is then 
easily distinguished from A. cuneatum by its more numerous and 
proportionally shorter pinnae, and also by the lower pinnae being 
rather less than those at the middle of the frond. 
A. furcatum, Thunb., var. tripinnatum. Bkr. Syn. Fil. 487 ; Wood, 
Ferns of Natal, 23. 
A. furcatum, Thb., var. tripinnatifidum. Sim, Kaff. Ferns, 45. 
A. laserpitiifolium. MiKen, Natal Ferns, No. 59. 
A. furcatum. P. and R. 20. 
Localities have not formerly been recorded for this as separate 
from A. furcatum, but it is the more common form, and possibly 
some quoted for the species belong to this var. 
East. — Grahamstown (Dr. Atherstone), Boschberg (MacOwan). 
Kaff. — Komgha (Flanagan), Main (Mrs. Young), and through all the 
Amatolla forests. 
Natal. — Noodsberg (Wood), Van Reenan’s Pass, Drakensberg (Dr. 
Rehmann, 7217), Nottingham (Buchanan), PeePs on the Umlaas 
(M‘Ken). 
(Asplenium bulbiferum. Forst. 
This well-known fern is credited in Hk. and Bkr. “ Syn. Fil.” 
