368 Bower . — Studies in the Phytogeny of the Filicales. 
veins and covered by the recurved leaf-margin. If, then, a non-indusiate 
representative of the Onocleinae were found, that discovery would 
materially strengthen an otherwise valid comparison instituted by the 
instinct of the older systematists. 
Such a type has been found in Matteuccia intermedia n. sp., C. Chr. 
I recently inquired of the Director of the Calcutta Garden whether he 
could supply to me specimens of Matteuccia ( Struthiopteris ) orientalis. He 
kindly obtained for me specimens sent under that name from Darjeeling. 
I also obtained a supply of plants, which appeared to be correctly named, 
by purchase from Messrs. May, of Edmonton. But when the plants from 
these two sources came to be grown side by side in the Glasgow Garden, it 
was obvious that they were not identical in habit. Moreover, as already 
recorded (Ann. of Bot., xxvi, p. 301), the Darjeeling specimens were found 
to have no indusium. This fact made the determination so doubtful that 
specimens were sent to Dr. C. Christensen. He reports to me by letter that 
‘ the form is extraordinarily interesting to me. I have some months ago 
described a species of Matteuccia (M. intermedia) as new. I have received 
it from Professor Sargent, and it was collected in the Province of Shen-Si, 
North China, by William Purdon. The plant from Darjeeling is no doubt 
the same species. ... I have also observed the total absence of an indusium 
in my M. intermedia , but in my specimens of M. orientalis I have not seen 
an indusium, probably because of the specimens being mature. . . . The 
full description of M. intermedia was sent to Prof. Sargent, and it should 
appear in the Botanical Gazette during the year.’ 1 
Thus a peculiar importance attaches to the origin and details of the 
sorus in the Fern from Darjeeling, now named Matteuccia intermedia . The 
venation of the fertile pinna is as is shown in my former memoir (Ann. of 
Bot., xxvi, PI. XXXVI, Fig. 36), and the position of the sori is such that 
they form a regularline on either side of the midrib, but there is no vascular 
commissure joining laterally the branch veins upon which each distinct and 
circumscribed sorus is seated. Sections transversely through the young 
pinnae show the relation of the sorus to the midrib and the margin as in 
PI. XXII, Fig. 2, d-g . There is a single vein in the midrib. The origin of the 
sorus is distinctly intramarginal (< d ), with a raised receptacle upon which 
the sporangia are borne in basipetal succession ( e,f,g ). There is at no 
time any sign of an indusium, but the sorus is nevertheless adequately pro- 
tected by the curved leaf-margin, in which in the young state the successive 
cleavages can be readily seen (d, e,f) } as in Plagiogyria : this is an indica- 
tion of its being, as in that case, the true margin. Longitudinal sections 
show that laterally the sori are quite distinct from one another (/*). The 
whole condition of the naked sorus, with its basipetal succession of 
sporangia, suggests a comparison with Alsophila. But an examination of 
1 Bot. Gazette, vol. lvi, 1913, p. 337. 
