460 
EILICES. 
Suborder VI. Marattiace^;. Capsules sessile, without any ring, 
usually concrete in masses, splitting vertically. Stems articulated on a 
tuberous rootstock, furnished at the base with two large auricles. 
Capsule concrete in masses 30. Marattia. 
Capsules not concrete in masses 31. Angiofteris. 
Suborder VII. Ophioglossacea). Capsules sessile, without any 
ring arranged in spikes or panicles, splitting laterally. 
The only genus 32. Ophioglossum. 
1. GLEICHENIA, Smith. 
Capsules sessile, splitting from top to bottom into halves, girt 
by a broad complete oblique transverse ring. Sori globose, without any 
involucre, consisting of very few comparatively large capsules, placed 
on a depressed receptacle on the back or at the base of the veins. — 
Large coriaceous dichotomously-forked ferns, with wiry wide-creeping 
rootstocks, the ultimate segments in our plants linear. Distrib. 
Tropical and warm temperate regions, especially of the southern hemi- 
sphere. Species 20-30. 
Only the ultimate branches of the frond leaf-bearing . . 1. G. dichotoma. 
All the branches of the frond leaf-bearing 2. G. flagellaris. 
1. G. dichotoma, Willd . ; Hook, and Baker, Byn. Fil. 15. Hoot- 
stock woody, wide-creeping, the thickness of a quill. Fronds reaching 
a height of 10 or 15 feet, 1-4 times dichotomously forked, with a pair 
of large erecto-patent pinnae with a scaly bud in their axil from the 
end of each branch and a pair of smaller deflexed pinnae also from each 
fork, the texture rigidly subcoriaceous, the surfaces naked, or the lower 
with a little ferruginous down on the midrib of the segments. End- 
pinnae lanceolate, 6-12 in. long, 1-2| in. broad, cut down to the rachis 
into close-spreading entire obtuse linear segments. Veins close, distinct, 
mostly trifurcate. Sori nearer the midrib than the edge. G-. Hermanni, 
Ft. Br. ; Bojer. Hort. Maur. 420. 
Mauritius and Seychelles, common on dry hills. Cosmopolitan in tropical 
and subtropical countries. 
2. G. flagellaris, Spreng. ; Hook, and Baker , Syn. Fil. 14. Fronds 
3 or 4 times dichotomously forked, leafy from the first forking con- 
tinuously to the top of the ultimate branchlets, the texture rigidly sub- 
coriaceous, the upper surface dark green and naked, the lower glaucous 
and with a little ferruginous down on the midrib of the segments. 
Pinnae lanceolate, 1-2 in. broad, cut down to the rachis into close ad- 
nate entire linear ultimate segments. Veins fine, distinct, once forked 
near the base. Sori on the back of the veins, nearer the edge than the 
