’ ft
W - l
texture to F. punctatus and F. ulvoides, which he received
from Miss H u t c h in s and Mr B r o d i e : it was without fructification
; but he remarks, “ the whole frond is not above three
inches long, and every where dichotomous, with linear segments
about four lines wide.” I cannot for a moment doubt, that
the plant thus alluded to, belonged to the species now described,
and it is therefore out of my power to name the individual
who was fortunate enough in the first instance to add so
beautiful a plant to the British Flora.
From my kind friend Mrs G r i f f i t h s I have received so
many and such perfect specimens, that it is my own fault if I
have not given a characteristic representation and faithful description
of the species. She has long maintained its right to
be regarded as distinct from all its British congeners; and specimens
communicated to Professor A g a r d h , were pronounced by
him to agree in all respects with his Delesseria ocellata. It
requires nice discrimination to distinguish between Delesseria
punctata and its allies. Even Mr T u r n e r , with all his experience
and accuracy, honestly confesses the difficulty of drawing
up characters to separate them, from dried specimens. So
far only have I any advantage over that excellent naturalist—
I have seen the subject of the present description in a growing
state, and gathered it near Torquay. Were I to venture to
bring forward characters sufficient to remove it from D. punctata,
I would fix upon the deeply cleft frond, and the uniform
divarication of the linear segments, which moreover divide
more regularly throughout the whole frond than they ever
do in D. punctata. The situation of the sori does not seem
to offer any character of importance ; for in D. punctata they
occupy every part of the frond in all my specimens, and in
D. ocellata it is hard to say whether they are confined to the
central divisions of the frond, where I have only observed them.
The capsular inode of fructification I find mentioned hy L a -
MOUEOUs, who figures the capsules as hemispherical at first,
with a rather acute point, afterwards nearly globose, with a wide
toothed orifice; but his representation is rather rude, and is probably
not perfectly correct.
Fig. 1. D. ocellala, natural size. Fig. 2. A portion o f ihe fro n d with a soriis.
Fig. S. - Sporidia ; magnified.
J