300 B outer. — Shi dies in the Phytogeny of the Fi lie ales. 
the insertion of the stalk. The sum of these characters indicates that we 
are dealing with Ferns of a middle position in the phyletic scale, a fact 
which makes the question of their suggested relation to the Cyatheaceous 
series all the more interesting. It will be convenient to take first the genera 
Struthiopteris and Onoclea^ for they have for long been regarded as having 
some near relation to the Cyatheaceae. 
Struthiopteris and Onoclea. 
The genus Struthiopteris (= Matteuccia) includes two species, S.ger- 
manica and S. orientalis , which have obliquely ascending or upright stocks 
covered with the bases of the closely grouped leaves, and Onoclea with its 
single species, O. sensibilis , L., having a creeping rhizome bearing isolated 
leaves. 1 Of these three species Struthiopteris orientalis is the least familiar. 
It shares the leading characters of them all. It will be briefly described 
here, from observations made partly on plants obtained from India through 
the Calcutta garden, and my thanks are due to the Director for them ; 
partly from plants living in the Glasgow Botanic Garden, originally obtained 
from Messrs. May of Edmonton. The points in which this Fern differs 
from the other two better known species will be noted as they arise. 
orientalis is a rather coarse-growing Fern, which may attain about 
the same dimensions as S.germanica. It has an obliquely ascending, or 
upright stock, which is completely covered by the bases of the densely 
tufted leaves. There were no runners on any of the plants examined, such 
as are a conspicuous feature in .S. getmianica. The leaf-bases are enlarged 
as they are in the other species, and in Plagiogyria , while they bear rough 
brownish, rounded outgrowths, mostly along their margins, in appearance 
like the pneumatophores of that Fern. The leaf-bases and stalks are 
thickly covered by broad, brown, chaffy scales. The simply pinnate leaves 
are dimorphic, the broad pinnae of the sterile leaves being deeply pinnatifid, 
and showing the Pecopterid venation without any anastomoses (cf. Engler u. 
Prantl, i. 4, Fig. 90 B, of S. germanica , which it strongly resembles). But in 
Onoclea the venation is reticulate, a condition which is held to be one of 
phyletic advance. Frequent middle forms occur between the sterile and 
fertile leaves. The latter are also simply pinnate, but the segments are 
narrow, and their margins strongly turned downwards so as to protect the sori, 
just as in Blechnum capense , L., a plant which this species closely resembles. 2 
The massive stock is solid, and does not show that basket-like structure, 
due to deep pockets immediately above the insertion of the leaves, described 
by G wynne- Vaughan for 5 . germanica , and in less degree for Onoclea 
sensibilis (‘New Phyt. vol. iv, p. 21 1). It is traversed by a dictyostele 
1 Dichotomy of the axis may be observed in 0. sensibilis. 
2 It may be remarked that several species now placed in the genus Blechnum have from time to 
time been ranked in the genus Struthiopteris , a clear evidence of the similarity which the genera bear 
to one another. The significance of this will appear in a subsequent paper of this series. 
