256 
The Ferns of South Africa. 
A good many species occur in North Africa, and south to 
Angola, but only one has been recorded within our district, and 
that I have been unable to see. 
174. Iosetes Natalensis. Baker. 
(Description from Baker’s Fern Allies, page 132.) 
“ Rootstock three-lobed. Leaves twelve to sixteen, very 
slender (quarter-line diameter), pale green, opaque, firm in texture, 
two to three inches long, rounded on the back, channelled down 
the face, furnished with stomata and accessory bast-bundles. 
Sporange small, globose, brownish ; veil none. Macrospores 
white, with small tubercles between the ribs, and large ones over 
the remainder of the surface. Microspores granulated. 
Natal. — Griffin’s Hill, Eastcourt (Rehmann, 7296).” 
Order V. — Rhizocarpe^e. 
Genus XLIII. — Azolla. Lam. 
A curious genus of minute plants, floating on water, and 
having short pinnately branched stems, from the under side of 
which the roots depend into the water. The branches are set 
with short clasping leaves, somewhat distant below, abundant and 
closely overlapping toward the points of the branches. In the 
axils of the leaves are produced the two kinds of sporangia, both 
sessile ; the larger kind roundish, and containing several or many 
globular stalked capsules, each containing a few microspores, the 
smaller roundish, with a conical point, and containing a single 
reproductive macrospore. The species are few, but widely 
distributed. 
175. Azolla pinnata. R. Br. 
Plate CLVIII. Fig. 1. a. Plant, natural size. b. Point of branch, 
enlarged, c. Sporange of macrospore, enlarged, d. Sporange 
of microspores, enlarged. 
Plant brownish, one-half to one inch long and broad, formed 
