NOTES. 
NOTE ON OPHIOGLOSSUM SIMPLEX, RIDLEY.— In the Annals of Botany, 
vol. xviii, p. 205, I described from a single specimen, received through Prof. Groom 
from Mr. Ridley, the details of this Sumatran species. It differs from other Ophio- 
glossaceae in the apparent absence of the sterile lamina, while the fertile spike is well 
developed. It was concluded, however, partly from the examination of the plant 
itself, partly from comparison, that the absence Was not primitive, but the result of 
abortion. The species was referred to § Ophioderma , a section of the genus the 
species of which form a natural group anatomically distinct. Its three representatives 
were held to illustrate phases of decrease of the sterile lamina, from 0. pendulum, where 
it is large, through O. intermedium , where it is small, to O. simplex, where the extreme 
condition is seen. This state may be attributed to the presence of mycorhiza, which 
makes nutrition of the large spike still possible in the dense wet forest in which it 
grows, notwithstanding that the usual assimilating organ is functionally non-existent. 
Campbell, however (Mosses and Ferns, second edition, p. 258), considers that 0 . 
simplex is not a reduced, but a primitive, form, and, in fact, ‘ the most primitive type 
of the genus yet discovered/ 
Any further facts relating to so rare, and at the same time so debatable, a form, 
will have their interest. It was then a pleasure to hear from Prof. E. Rosenstock, of 
Gotha, that the plant had been again collected in Sumatra, in dense forest, on the 
Lalah river (Indragiri, West Coast). He was kind enough to send the specimens for 
examination, and consents to this note being published. 
The specimens were evidently referable to 0 . simplex Ridley, but instead of the 
sterile leaf being entirely absent, as it appeared to be in Ridley’s specimen which I 
examined, several of the elongated spikes bore, at a short distance below the fertile 
region, a more or less pronounced outgrowth, evidently representing a sterile lamina, 
while below that point there was a slightly increased width of the stalk. In dried 
specimens of such succulent organisms it is difficult to be certain of the natural form : 
there is, however, little room for doubt that Dr. Rosenstock’s specimens were very like 
the plant figured by Sir William Hooker as 0 . intermedium, but with the sterile lamina 
very much smaller. 
The fact that the minute sterile lamina thus exists in some, though perhaps not 
in all, specimens of 0. simplex gives justification for the reduction hypothesis which 
I previously advanced, and links the species closer with 0. intermedium and 0. pendu- 
lum. In his latest contribution to the morphology of the Ophioglossaceae which deals 
with certain of their embryos (Ann. Jard. Bot. Buit., 1907 ) Professor Campbell has 
held as the most primitive forms of the genus those which diverge most widely from 
the type usual in other Pteridophytes. In holding 0 . simplex to be primitive he 
appears to take the same view in respect of a mature plant. It appears to me, however, 
to be a more probable view to hold those forms which are least divergent, such as the 
type of 0 . vulgatum, to be relatively primitive, while the three species of § Ophioderma 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXII. No. LXXXVI. April, 1908.] 
