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XXV. A Review of the Ferns of Northern India. By CHARLES BARON CLARKE, 
M.A., F.L.S. 
(Plates XLIX.-LXXXIV.) 
Read June 19th, 1879. 
INDIA proper (that is, exclusive of the Malayan or Trans-Gangetic Peninsula) was 
divided by Kurz into three main regions, viz. :—(1) the Himalaya, extending from Kashmir 
to Bhotan and Chittagong ; (2) the Peninsula with Ceylon, extending as far north as the 
tableland extends; and (3) the great plain between, the home of the Hindoos, Hin- 
doosthan. 
The area included in the present paper comprises the first and third of these divisions, 
i. e. all India proper except the Peninsula. Several considerations have induced me to 
confine myself to this area. First, I have collected Ferns myself from Kashmir to Bho- 
tan, Khasia, and Chittagong, for upwards of eleven years; I have only visited South 
India for a few weeks. Secondly, Col. Beddome has spent his Indian career in Southern 
India; and his aecount of the Ferns of Southern India is, in the judgment of Major 
Henderson, nearly unassailable; but Col. Beddome has, T believe, hardly collected at all 
himself in Northern India, and his invaluable plates of the Ferns of British India are, in 
the case of many species, founded on very scanty material As my own Herbarium 
contains more forms from Northern India than the whole Kew accumulations, I hope 
therefore to have been able to add somewhat to the previous A MAI of the North- 
Indian Ferns. 
I have drawn up the present paper at Kew, seated within a few yards of Mr. Baker 
and I believe I have taken advantage of his extreme courtesy to the extent of asking 
his opinion on every point as it turned up. While, therefore, he is not responsible for the 
view I may have adopted in each case, I may claim that I have had the full benefit of 
his experience. After the different tribes have been written out, Major Henderson has 
gone over the whole material at Kew with me; he has corrected several slips that I had 
made; and in the body of the paper I have in all cases mentioned particularly any point 
wherein he differs from what I have written. The present paper is therefore virtually 
a paper by Major Henderson and myself; but, as I have done all the writing, he declined 
to have it so entitled. 
The paper is in the form of a copious appendix to Hooker and Baker's ‘ Synopsis 
Filicum ;’ i. e. I have often given no diagnosis of a species; and the remarks on every 
Species are additions or corrections to the account in the ‘Synopsis Filicum. No 
person is likely to undertake the study of Indian Ferns without this book at his elbow ; 
and Ihave not wished to print more repetition than the large quantity always absolutely 
necessary in work of this kind. The first 48 pages of the ‘ Synopsis Filicum `" were done 
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