Hope: Note on Asplenium 6i 



I have not leathered A./o?itamnn Bernh., but I possess numerous 

 specimens, collected by five contributors in the northwestern Hima- 

 laya, from Hazara eastward to Kumaun, and have seen many 

 more collected by them and many others from Afghanistan to 

 west Nepal, and, except as to size, I can say that the specimens 

 are very uniform. Mature plants vary from 2 ^ to 12 inches in 



height (including rootstock) according to attitude and exposure. 

 The largest I have seen were from Kashmire at an altitude of 

 4500 ft.; one I have is 12 inches high ; and I have a note of an- 

 other plant which had 16 fresh fronds covering, as dried, an area of 

 15x10 inches. There is never any resemblance to, or passage 

 into A. exigjitini Bcdd. The Indian specimens agree with the de- 

 scription of A. fontamiin in that they are all distinctly bipinnatc ; 



* 



A, cxigiuun (or Glcnnici) is never more than bipinnatifid, A.fon- 

 tanum is always of a pale grass-green color — almost yellowish 

 sometimes : A, cxigiiuin is always dark green. And, correspond- 

 ing to the cutting and venation, the position of the sori in the two 

 plants is quite different. In A, fontaniDii the sori are all placed in 

 the pinnules and segments, on the veinlcts, without any relation 

 to the costa of the pinna : in ^. exiguuui they are in a row on each 

 side of and close to the costa, curving outwards with the veins 

 towards the segments. A,fontanuui^ so far as I know, ncv^er has 

 fronds with the rhachis prolonged and rooting at the point ; nor 

 have I seen it proliferous at the pinnae. Both these features are 

 characteristic of A. exigiiwn, 



A great deal of the European material called A. Halleri 



Asp 



fc 



HalL 



fe 



not lie along the costa or secondary rhachis. Willdcnow said of 



fontano 



A, exig- 



man varies considerably in width of frond and pinnae and in cut- 

 ting, but the variations are all away from the direction o{ A, fonta- 

 mtm. Indeed I should find it difficult to point out identical 

 characters, or even resemblances, between the two plants. 



A. exlgmim is abundant in many places within the municipal 

 limits of Mussooree, the Hill Sanitarium in the District of Dehra 

 Doon, Northwest Provinces, India — where I have chiefly observed 



