Plalylotna bdlmn, M o o r e , in Gardener’s Chronicle, Feb. 15, 1873, p. 213.
Pdloea bdla, B a k e r , Syn. F i l . ed. ii.. p. 477.
H ad.— Rocky places in the Sierra of California, at 4 0 0 0 feet elevation,
B o lan d eu , collected in 1869. Also sent by Mrs. P u l s if e k
A m e s , and Mrs. R. M. A u st in , and by Messrs. K e l lo g g & H a r fo rd
(No. 116 9 ).
D e s c r i p t i o n ; — This has a very similar root-stock and
habit of growth to P. Wrightiana and P. Ornithopus, and
may quite possibly be ultimately united with both of them.
The fronds are more strict in habit than cither of them, and
are mainly distinguished by having comparatively short and
erect or ascending pinnæ. While the fronds are normally
bipinnate, a few two-parted or three-parted pinnules are not
unfrequently produced, and render the separation from P. Or-
nithoptis very difficult. Moore's P . bethmi seems, from the
description, to be only a smaller and still more constricted
form of Pettcea brachyptera, which, according to Mr. Bolander's
observations, produces larger and less constricted fronds whenever
the rocks on which it grows are moistened by spray,
as happens sometimes where an aqueduct is carried along a
mountain side. I have seen no sterile fronds.
Plate X LV II., Fig. y - t .— Pdtcca bractyptera, drawn from a plant
collected on hills near Mill Creek, Plumas County, California, by Mrs.
Ames. Fig. 5 is a pinnule, enlarged, and showing the venation and
sporangia. Fig. 6, a spore.
P l a t e X L V I I .— F ig . 7 -10 .
P E L LÆ A O RN ITH O PU S , H o o k e r .
Bird-foot Cliff-Brake.
P e l l æ a O r n i t h o p u s : — Root-stock short, thick, nodose,
densely chaffy with very narrow dark-brown scales ; stalks
clustered, rather stout, dark-purplish or almost black, polished,
rigid, two to ten inches long ; fronds four to twelve inches long,
very rigid, broadly ovate-lanceolate in outline, when fully developed
tripinnate; primary pinnæ spreading, or obliquely ascending,
linear, the lower ones one-fourth to one-third the
length of the frond, bearing from a few up to sixteen pairs
of usually trifoliolate, but sometimes varying to simple or to
five-to-seven-foliolate, nearly sessile pinnules ; ultimate segments
or pinnules commonly only one and a half to two
lines long, coriaceous, slightly glaucous beneath, roundish-
quadrate in the rare sterile fronds, and with the margins
rolled in to the midvein in the fertile fronds, mucronulate.
Ornilhopiis, H o o k e r , Sp. F i l , ii„ p. 14 3 , t. c x v i ., M .— H o o k e r
& B a k e r , Syn. P il, p. 14 9 . — E .a to n , Ferns of the South-West,
p. 3 -2 . — D a v e n p o r t , CRtnl, p. 16 .
Allosorvs aniromedtefoliiis, H o o k e r , in Plantet Harlwegianct, p. 342,
(No. 2042), not of Kaulfuss.