3l 
DAVALLIA gibberosa. 
Gibbous Hares-foot Fern. 
—a 
Linnean Class and Order. CRYPTOGAMIA FILICES. 
Natural Order, FILICES. Brown prodr.1. p. 145. 
Subordo I. GYRAT& (Polypodiacex.) Capsule uniloculares, annulo articulato, 
elastico, longitudinali, (plerumque incompleto) instructe ; transversim irregulariter 
rumpentes. 
DAVALLIA. Sori subrotundi (v. in lineola verticali) margini plerumque ap- 
proximati. Involucrum superficiarium, ex apice vene unice ortum, lateribus v. lat& 
basi adnatum, exteriis et verticaliter liberum. Brown prodr. p. 156, 
D. gibberosa, caudice decumbente nodoso, frondibus tripinnatis laxis, pinnis oblongis 
pinnatifido-incisis, laciniis linearibus obtusis, gibbis margine interiore fructiferi, 
involucris insertis cuneatis apice subtruncato. 
Davallia gibberosa. Swartz gen. et spec. fil. p. 88. Spreng. syst. 4. p. 119? 
Trichomanes gibberosum. Forst. prodr. flor. ins, aust. p.85. 

Caudex about the thickness of a large finger, branched from 
the base in all directions, creeping or procumbent, frequently 
knotted, thinly clothed with long, narrow, taper-pointed chaff, 
which is of a lighter colour and much less crowded than in 
D. canarienstis; it is also of much more free growth, and 
stronger altogether: the young shoots or knots at first conical, 
and producing the fronds. Stem of the frond densely clothed 
with scaly chaff at the base, the upper part smooth and glossy, 
more or less tinged or irregularly marked with purple, deeply 
channelled at the front and rounded at the back, a little twisted 
at the base, the upper part much branched, three times pinnate, 
loosely spreading ; the leaflets pinnatifid or more or less deeply 
divided, smooth and glossy: segments oblongly linear, obtuse, 
generally entire, but some of the sterile ones are notched at the 
point, the fertile ones all entire, and raised into a sort of swell- 
ing opposite to the spots of fructification. Sor or tufts of 
flowers inserted near the points of the segments on the under 
side. Jnvolucre thin, or membranaceous, wedge-shaped, trun- 
cate at the point, where it opens for the expansion of the flowers 
