Affinities of Peronema and Diacalpe . 247 
the Cyatheaceae and the Aspidiaceae, adopted for it by Presl, Robert 
Brown, and Diels, will be confirmed in this account of its anatomy. 
The observations here to be detailed, and those later to be detailed for 
Diacalpe aspidioides, BL, have been made partly on Herbarium specimens, 
but especially upon material preserved in spirit and upon living specimens, 
which were supplied from India, through the kindness of the Director 
of the Calcutta Garden. Strong plants of Peranema and Diacalpe from 
this source are under cultivation in the Glasgow Botanic Garden. The 
investigation was carried on partly in the Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic 
Gardens, Kew. For facilities afforded there, I am much indebted to Lieut. - 
Col. Prain, F.R.S. To Mr. L. A. Boodle, F.L.S., and to Professor F. O. 
Bower, F.R.S., under whose direction the work has been carried on, I am 
indebted for much help and criticism. 
External Characters. 
The stock is distinctly upright, some four to six inches in length. 
The roots spring from every side of it and are branched and fibrous. The 
leaves are from one to three feet in length and of a bright green colour. 
Their stalks are long, sometimes a foot in length, convex at first and then 
furrowed on the adaxial side. Both stock and rachis are covered with 
paleae, which are lanceolate, with acuminate tips ; they have reticulate 
marking, almost entire or quite entire margins, and are of a light dusky 
red colour. These are persistent from the first on the young stalks. The 
leaves are tripinnate, broadly ovate, with acuminate apices. They have wide 
alternate pinnae, on the pinnules of which the leaf-segments are sessile. 
The leaf-segments are linear-oblong with rounded apices ; the lower ones 
are pinnatifid, the upper are broadly crenate. On the main rachis and on 
that of the branches are short, subulate, hyaline, incurved hairs, on which 
small glands are borne. Similar glands are also found on the rachis among 
the hairs, but arising directly from the epidermal cells of the rachis. The vena- 
tion is open and simple ; no anastomosing veins are found in any part of the 
leaf (PI. XXVIII, F'ig. 1). On the under side the veins are provided with little 
stalked glands, the stalks of which are sometimes unicellular, sometimes multi- 
cellular. The sori are produced superficially on the lower side of the leaf. 
Each sorus is borne on a short stalk and arises upon the surface of a vein, 
but always some distance from the tip of the vein. The indusium is entire 
except for a small pit which is present on the under side and quite close to 
the junction of the stalk with the indusium. At maturity a vertical split 
occurs across the sorus, and the two sides of the indusium become reflexed 
and finally flattened out. The sporangia are very crowded on the elongated 
receptacle and are long-stalked. Each has a pale dusky red annulus. The 
spores are sub-globose and covered with warty markings. 
