






98 THE BRITISH FERNS. 
to the veins. In Allosorus, the sori instead of being elongated are 
punctiform, but they become laterally confluent in the same way 
as in Cryptogramma, and in some states of the plant a tendency to 
elongate is perhaps also to be observed.. The two groups are 
undoubtedly very closely related, and we have regarded them as 
constituting the salient points, at which the genera having linear 
and punctiform sori, touch each other. 
Sir W. J. Hooker, in his Species Filicum (ii. 127), has not only 
united our Allosorus with Cryptogramma under the latter name, 
but also several species of the two supposed genera into one, repre- 
sented by A. crispus. “If indeed," he observes, “there was a 
manifest difference in the sori, so as to constitute different genera, 
between C. crispa and OC. acrostichoides and Brunoniana, as Presl 
and lately Mettenius maintain is the case, the first could on no 
account be united with the two latter, but I think I may appeal 
to the magnified representations of the sori of C. erispa as given in 
our Genera Filicum, and in Fée’s Genera Filicum, and of those of 
the other two kinds in the leones Filicum, in support of my views 
that there is no available distinction.” “ When,” he continues, “an 
old plant is found in a part of the world very distant from its 
previously known locality, one is apt to look upon it as something . 
new; and, as is the case with the Cedar of Lebanon and the Cedar 
of the Himalaya, it is very difficult to remove the impression once 
made on the “mind, although no tangible character to distinguish 
them can be detected." We think the figures of A. crispus referred 
to are defective. 
The genus Allosorus was originally proposed by Bernhardi for a 
group of very varied Ferns, having no combining character which 
can now be considered as important. The name has since his day 
been variously applied, but by the generality of pteridologists it has 
been assigned to a group of doubtful plants, oscillating between 
Pteris and Cheilanthes according to the particular views of authors, 
but nevertheless quite devoid of any satisfactory character, to distin- 
guish them from these genera; some of the species having puncti- 
form receptacles, and belonging truly to Oheilanthes, notwithstanding 
their having a continuous indusioid margin, and others being truly 
pteroid, having the sori attached to a continuous marginal recep- 

