364 West.— A Contribution to the Study of the Marattiaceae. 
On the other hand, the adult sporophyte of Danaea nodosa , Sm., which 
is a much larger plant than Danaea alata , Sin., has a very different habit. 
The stem, upon which the leaves are inserted in an irregular spiral, is 
constructed on a radial plan, but in a few of the specimens examined the 
axis had assumed an oblique position relatively to the ground-level ; the 
change in the direction of growth of the stem apparently has no effect upon 
the arrangement and position of the leaves, which adapt themselves to the 
altered conditions by bending in the region of the basal pulvinus, whilst 
the long robust roots, which are equally numerous on all sides of the stem 
and which bear no definite numerical relation to the leaves, grow more or 
less vertically downwards, branching freely in a monopodial manner, often 
at a considerable distance from the stem. This gives a curious appearance 
to the larger specimens of Danaea nodosa , such as 
that represented in PI. XXII, Fig. 8, the caudex 
of which had attained a diameter of 4 cm. and 
a length of more than 40 cm. 
In this species also, stipules with distinct 
commissures occur near the base of the petioles. 
The stem was unbranched in every specimen 
examined ; what at first sight appeared to be 
a lateral branch on one of the stems on closer 
examination proved to be an adventitious bud, 
which had arisen from one of the old leaf-bases 
(Text-fig. 2). 
This method of vegetative propagation is not 
uncommon in Angiopteris and Marattia , and it is 
^ „ a general practice among fern-growers to pro- 
nodosa, Sm. Part of the caudex pagate these two genera by means of their ad- 
i’„ f /a y^g S Te P n h tWo’us h b^ ventitious buds, which are often produced in 
( adv.b .). Nat. size. large numbers (cf. Buchanan, 16 ; also Hofmeister, 
33 , p. 255 )- 
Gwynne-Vaughan ( 30 , p. 266) called attention to masses of meri- 
stematic tissue which he observed in the leaf-bases of Archangiopteris and 
of Kaulfussia , and suggested that they might represent the rudiments 
of adventitious buds. The present writer has noticed the occurrence of 
similar masses of meristematic tissue in the leaf-bases of Kaulfussia 
and of two species of Danaea (Text-figs. 10, A, and 8, b), but only in the 
case of Danaea nodosa has their ultimate development into leafy shoots 
been observed. 
Vascular Anatomy. Apart from the scanty observations of the earlier 
botanists (Brongniart, 13 , p. 439, PI. XXXIII, Figs. 2 and 3; Karsten, 40 , 
p. 198, PI. IX, Fig. 10; Mettenius, 49 , p. 524; Kuhn, 43 , p. 147), practically 
nothing was known of the arrangement of the vascular strands in the genus 
Danaea until 1902, when Brebner ( 12 ) published a full account of the 
