Descriptions of the Species. 
175 
synonym ; while the plant without indusium is placed under 
P. obtusilobum, Desv. Buchanan, on what he calls a common 
plant, remarks — “ In the last edition of ‘ Syn. Fil.,’ P. obtusilo- 
bum, Desv., is retained as a Natal species, and evidently with 
reason, for the involucre even when visible (which is seldom) is 
strictly rudimentary, and the sori as a whole show all the irregu- 
larity in shape and size of other species of Phegopteris.” 
Kuhn confines P. obtusilobum, Desv. (Aspid. Desvauxii, 
Mett.), to Madagascar, and rejects N. conterminum from the 
African continent ; and I have seen no reason why either should 
be credited to South Africa. 
This cannot be regarded even as a permanent variety of 
N. Bergianum, Bkr., as sori with and without indusia occur on the 
same frond, and the same thing happens sometimes with N. 
molle.) 
1 01. Nephrodium Bergianum. Baker. 
Plate XCVI. Nat. size. b. Fertile pinnae, c. Sorus. 
Crown procumbent or sub-erect, or sometimes elongated into 
a stout rhizome of several inches ; slightly scaly. Frond lanceo- 
late, one to five feet long, six to fifteen inches broad, thinly 
herbaceous, minutely villose, or sometimes nearly glabrous, with a 
villose rachis, and a round, green, villose stipe six to twelve inches 
long. Frond widest at the middle, and tapering gradually to both 
ends. Pinnae lanceolate, cut almost to the rachis, so that veinlets 
from neighbouring pinnules cannot meet. Pinnules oblong and 
rounded, or obliquely blunt pointed, or falcate, sometimes closely 
set and overlapping, and in others one line apart. In large 
fronds the pinnules are a quarter-inch broad, three-quarter inch 
long, and the lower one on the upper side sometimes larger, and 
then pinnatifid. Sori small, placed on the veinlets halfway 
between the mid-rib and the margin of the pinnules, often many in 
a pinnule ; involucre small, fugacious, thus causing the confusion 
noted under N. conterminum. It differs from N. patens, Sw., in 
