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glands, which also abound on both surfaces of the pinnæ, rendering
them very viscid. There are about six pairs of pinnæ ; and
these, especially the lower pairs, are distant from each other.
The pinnæ are broadly triangular in outline, and rather less than
half an inch long and broad. They have a short dark-brown
viscid-puberulent secondary rachis, which soon passes into an
undefined herbaceous midrib. The basal primary divisions of the
pinnæ are therefore distinct, and the superior ones confluent.
These divisions are ovate-oblong, and are cut into a few pinnately
arranged ovate slightly-toothed lobes, the minute teeth recurved
to form an involucre. The sporangia are few in number, — probably
not more than three to a sorus. The spores are obscurely
tetrahedric or almost spherical, and covered with finely reticulated
ridges or narrow wings.
In the shape and cutting of the pinnæ, this fern is most like
C. ÎVrightii ; but the fronds are rather taller, and are everywhere
excessively viscid, in places appearing as if varnished over with
the resinous (?) exudation from the glands. The involucre, too,
is more herbaceous in C. viscida. The stalk, which is furrowed
in C. ÎVrightii, is perfectly round and without furrow in the
present plant ; a character which would throw it into Keyserling’s
§ Notholæna of the genus Cheilanthes, but its general affinities
are plainly with such species of Cheilanthes as C. Wrightii and
C. tenuifolia.
The only specimens I have seen are from the collection of
Mr. Davenport.
Plate XII., Fig. I. — A plant of Cheilanthes viscida, with three fronds,
that to the right showing the under surface. The magnified drawings represent
a scale from the base of the stalk, a fruiting pinna, one of the peculiar
glands and a spore, the two last magnified many diameters.
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