8 
DOODIA aspera. 
Rigid Doodia. | 
CRYPTOGAMIA FILICES.—Nat. Orv. FILICES, Div. Gyratx, Br. 
Gen. Cuar.—Sori lunulati vel lineares, seriati, coste paralleli. Involucrum 
e ramulo anastomosante ven ortum, planum, intus liberum.—Br. 
Frondes ceespitose, pinnate, ate dentatis quntoges mee Sore 
interdum biseriati. — Br. 
Doodia aspera; frondibus lanceolatis pinnatifidis, laciniis lineari-ensi- 
formibus acuminatis spinuloso-serratis, soris lunulatis, distinctis, pas- 
sum biseriatis, stipite rachique asperis.—Br. 
D. aspera, Brown, Prod. Fl. Nov. Holl. p. 151. 
Every part of this plant is singularly rigid. The fronds, about 8 inches in 
length, grow in a tufted manner, but spreading out with their extremi- 
ties in all directions; their form is lanceolate, attenuated at the base and 
at the extremity, terminating below in a short stipes, beset with stiff, 
hard, black, mostly reversed scales, as is the back of the rachis, dark 
green : these fronds are deeply pinnatifid, the pinne or segments linear- 
ensiform, the terminal one thrice as long as the rest, all with a central 
rib and many nerves branching off from it, which ramify and anasto- 
mose with each other; the margins spinuloso-serrate, and nearly every 
other spinule reflexed. Sori, or clusters of fructification, oblong, bursting 
from a branch of the veins which runs parallel with the central rib, and 
is about half-way between it and the margin. Jnvolucre lunulato-ob- 
long, plane, opening internally, and then ‘exhibiting a number of sphe- 
rical, reticulated, annulated, and pedunculated capsules. Seeds spheri- 
eal. | ) . 
The genus Doodia is peculiar to New Holland, and was 
named by our learned countryman Mr Browy, in honour of 
SAMUEL Doopy, one of our earliest investigators of Crypto- 
gamic Plants. One of its species, D. caudata, has been ar- 
ranged by CAVANILLES and WILLDENoW under Wood- 
wardia, from which the present genus differs in its plane (not 
fornicate) involucre, unconnected at its inner margin, and 
VOL. I. 
