290 MR. C. B. CLARKE ON HIMALAYAN FERNS. 
species. But with regard to two ferns treated by me in “The 
Ferns of Northern India,” Mr. Levinge has shown me distinct 
errors which I desire to take an early opportunity of correcting. 
It must be understood that these corrections are entirely due to 
my friend H. C. Levinge; but as they have formed the subject of 
several letters, he has authorized me to write them out in a form 
better fitted for publication. 
Col. Beddome, in his ‘ Ferns Brit. Ind.’ t. 333, figured a new 
Himalayan fern as Lastrea pulvinulifera.. Beddome at the same 
time communicated a type specimen to Kew. This sheet is here 
(exhibited at the Meeting), with only one ticket on it, marked 
n. 99, and named in Beddome's hand. But this sheet has now 
mounted on it two ferns which are totally distinct: the upper is 
the fern described in my paper as Nephrodium sparsum var. squa- 
mulosa; the other is the fern taken up by Baker as Nephrodiwm 
pulvinuliferum, and so called in my paper on the Ferns of 
Northern India. Mr. Baker is strongly of opinion that the two 
ferns were sent him as one species, and that the figure, Bedd. 
* Ferns Brit. Ind. t. 333, is compounded out of the two, showing 
the cushion-like caudex of JN. sparsum var. squamulosa, united 
to the long-bristle-hairy rhachises of N. pulvinuliferum, Baker. 
Col. Beddome, on the other hand, maintains that he sent Mr. 
Baker only one fern, viz. the JN. sparsum var. squamulosa, and 
that his figure represents that only, the hairs on the rhachises 
being only a slight artistic exaggeration of the black scales which 
occur in that species. Col. Beddome maintains that the lower 
piece, the NW. pulvinuliferum, Baker, was mixed on the sheet in 
the Kew pasting-down, and that it is a fern he never saw in his 
life till he saw it at*Kew as N. pulvinuliferum. I must leave 
Col. Beddome and Mr. Baker to settle this between them. 
Perhaps it is not capable of settlement; and, if so, the future 
naming of these two ferns must be determined outside the ordi- 
nary rules of nomenclature. I have stated in my paper that N. 
pulvinuliferum, Baker, is also known as N. Buchanani, which is 
correct. I therefore now suggest that this fern be called, both 
in India and Africa, N. Buchanani, and that the name “ pulvi- 
nuliferum ” be applied (whether as species or variety) to the fern 
called in my paper N. sparsum var. squamulosa ; that is, the fern 
which bears a cushion (pulvinus) at the caudex, which N. pulvi- 
nuliferum, Baker, does not; and that is the fern which Beddome 
himself says was the only one intended by him as pulvinulifera. 
