Page:Miscellaneousbot01brow.djvu/164

 146 BOTANY OF CONGO.

SO constant, that I am inclined to consult the relative numbers of these two tribes, in determining whether the greater part of any intratropicalPlora belongs to level tracts, or to regions of such elevation as would materially affect the proportions of the principal natural families : and in applying this test to Baron Humboldt's collection, it is found to partake somewhat of an extratropical character, Poacese being rather more numerous than Panicesc. While in conformity to the usual equinoctial proportions, con- siderably more than half the grasses in the Congo herbarium consist of Paniceae.

Among the Panicese of the collection, there are two un- published genera. The first is intermediate, in character, to Andropogon and Saccharuni; but with a habit very different from both. The second, which is common to 461] other parts of the coast and to India, appears to connect in some respects Saccharum with Panicum.

The remarks I have to make on the Acotyledonoiis Plants from Congo, relate entirely to

PILICES, of which there are twenty-two species in the collection. The far greater part of these are new, but all of them are referable to well established genera, particularly to Nephrodium, Asplenium, Pteris, and Polypodium. There are also among them two new species of Adiantitm, a genus of which no species had been before observed on this line of coast. Trichomanes and HpnenojoJii/Ihcm are wanting in the collection, and these genera, which seem to require con- stant shade and humidity, are very rare in equinoctial Africa. Of Osmundacece, the herbarium contains only one plant, which is a new species of Lygodium, and the first of that genus that has been noticed from the continent of Africa.

Among the few species common to other countries, the most remarkable is Gleichenia Hermanni,-^ which I have compared and found to agree with specimens from the con-

1 Trodr. Flor. Kov. Iloll. 1, p. IGl. Mciteiibia dicliotoma mild. Sj). FL 5, ij. 71.

�� �