464. MR. C. B. CLARKE ON THE FERNS OF NORTHERN INDIA. 
number in Wallich's Herbarium is a blank sheet of paper. Mr. Baker's area, ‘ from the 
Himalaya to Ceylon," is too sweeping ; it is found at the base of the Eastern Himalaya, 
also in Ceylon. 
Var. Grevilleana, Mett. MS., not Agardh.. Margin of the frond (wow barren) with 
some spinulose teeth ; lowest pinne in the barren frond often pinnate, the segments 
or pinnules acute. : 
Sylhet, Wallich. Mishmee, Griffith. Khasia, Hk. f. $ T. Chittagong Hills, C..B. Clarke. 
—This very critical form was attached to P. cretica in the Kew Herbarium; the yena- 
tion, as well as the much divided lower pinne, tend more to P. ensiformis. The spinulose 
teeth puzzled Mettenius; but some undoubted examples of P. ensiformis have the teeth 
as spinulose, though not so much hooked. The fern appears to form a transition from 
P. ensiformis type to P. heterodactyla, Reinw., in which the pinnze are much more coms 
pound, but which is reckoned a variety of P. ensiformis at Kew. Mettenius sent the 
present plant named P. Grevilleana, Agardh. 
*** Frond 1-pinnate, the pinne pinnatifid at least half down to the rhachis, or 
2-3-pimnate. 
6. P. Grirriram, Hook. Sp. Fil. ii. 170, t. 1234. Frond demens pinne pinnatifid 
nearly to the rhachis, or bipinnate; ultimate segments $ by 4—7% in., distant, linear- 
oblong, obtuse, entire or very slightly erenate.—Bedd. Ferns Brit. Ind. t. 24; Hk. & 
Baker, Syn. Fil. 156. 
Mishmee, Griffith. 
A well-marked species; and, as Sir W. J. Hooker remarks, the examples are very 
uniform ; but there are only two sheets of specimens, which look uncommonly as though 
Griffith cut them all from one rhizome. Botany is easy, and species very distinct, when 
founded on such material. : 
7. P. sEMr-PINNATA, Linn, Sp. Pl.1534, Frond pinnate; pinne with their upper margin 
subentire, their lower deeply pinnatifid; ultimate segments 1} by } in., narrowly 
lanceolate, margin (where barren) regularly serrate.—Hook. Sp. Fil. ii, 169; Hook. 
Garden Ferns, t. 59; Wall. Cat. 97; Bedd. Ferns South. Ind. t. 34; Hk. & Baker, 
Syn. Fil. 157, P. E Schkuhr, Fil. t. 93. P. dimidiata, Blume, Enum. Pl. — 
Jay. Fil. 210; Roxb. in Cale. Journ. Nat. Hist. iv. 507. 
East Bengal from Assam to Chittagong, alt. 0-1000 feet, common; ascending the Khasi 
Hills to 4000 feet alt., fide Hk. f. & 7—Distrib. Travancore, Malay Peninsula and 
Islands, China, Japan. 
This fern is always easily recognized in Northern India by being nain or 
rather semi-bipinnatifid. But in China and Japan the pinne are pinnatifid more or less ` : 
on the upper margin until forms are arrived at so completely bipinnatifid that it is- 
difficult to say what should be done with them. The fern is a plains fern, abundant at — 
Sylhet station. I never could find it at 4000 feet alt. in the Khasi Hills. Base of the 2 
stipe hispid, with linear permanent scales. 
