' I l
has shorter pinnæ, with fewer and rather longer pinnules,
and is identical with P. IVeddelliana, of Fee, a specimen of
which was sent to me by that learned Pteridologist. But
the two forms differ very slightly, and are connected by intermediate
forms ; so that Mr. Baker has done well in uniting
them in Species Filicitm, though the name he has chosen,
although given by myself, I must regard as not to be retained
under the generally accepted laws of nomenclature.
Moreover, my original AHosorus mucronatus was founded on
small Californian specimens of P. Ornithopus, of Hooker,
and it was after the publication of Hooker’s species of Pel-
loea that I proposed, in the Botany of the Mexican Boundary,
to unite his three species under the name of Pellæa
mucronata.
Some of Mr. Brandegee’s Colorado specimens show a
slight tendency to become tripinnate; and it must be confessed
that it is not easy to show any very clear distinction
between the present species and P. Ornithopus on one side,
and P. ternifolia on the other.
Plate X LV II. — Fig. 1 - 3 . Pellæa Wrightiana, from Arizona, collected
by Professor Rothrock. Fig. 2 is a pinnule, the margin partly
turned back, to show the veinlets and the sporangia. Fig. 3, a spore.
P l a t e X LV II. — F ig . 4-6.
P E L LÆ A B R A C I IP Y T E R A , B a k e r .
Strict Cliff-Brake.
P e l l æ a b r a c h y p t e r a Root-stock short, knotted, chafiy
with very narrow ferruginous denticulate scales; stalks six
to eight inches long, erect, wiry, blackish and shining; fronds
nearly as long as the stalks, rigid, narrowly oblong-linear in
outline, bipinnate; pinnae several pairs, sessile, ascending or
almost oppressed, very short, often broader than long- pinnules
five to thirteen to a pinna, three to six lines long, very
closely placed, coriaceous, greenish-glaucescent, oblong-linear,
mncronulate, the edges much rolled in, making the pinnules
nearly terete; veins mostly twice forked; sporangia near the
ends of the veinlets, covered by the revolute margins of the
pinnules.
P A x a brachyptera, B a k e r , Syn. Fil., c d . ii„ p. 477- D a v e n p o r t , Catalogue
of the Davenport Herbarium of North American Ferns,
p . 16 .
Platylorca brachyptcrtmt, M o o r e , in Gardener's Chronicle. Feb , ,8 7 -
p. 14 1. ’
PMata Or,nthopuc, var. brachyptera. E a t o n , in Bulletin of the Torrey
Botanical Club, iv, p. ,6 ; Ferns of the South-West, p. 322.