. MR. C. B. CLARKE ON THE FERNS OF NORTHERN INDIA. 515 
ihe sinus; sori small or medium-sized; inyolucres pilose, with white hairs.—N. 
sericeum, J. Scott; Hk. & Baker, Syn. Fil. (2nd ed.) 494. <Aspidium ciliatum, 
Wall. Cat. 851. A. canum, Wall. Cat. 387. Lastrea sericea, Bedd. Ferns Brit. 
Ind. t. 308. L. nigrescens, Hook. in Herb., at least in part. 
Nepaul, Wallich. East Bengal, from Sikkim and Assam to Chittagong; alt. 0-5000 
feet, very common.—Distrib. Burma, Malaya, South Deccan, Ceylon. 
Scott's original type had very obtuse pinne, cut hardly halfway to the midrib, and is 
figured by Bedd. /. c. ; this form is only known from Chittagong, alt. 0-200 feet: in my 
examples the pinnze are still blunter and less pinnatifid than in Beddome’s figure. But 
the form abundant in Khasia at 4000 feet alt. (and also obtained from Sikkim to Bhotan) 
has the pinnze caudate and cut down nearly to the midrib : is Lastrea Bergiana, Schlect. ; 
Bedd. Ferns Brit. Ind. Suppl. 16, t. 370; and was Wallich’s type. This plant runs very 
near N. gracilescens, var. 2. hirsutipes. It is strange that JN. sericeum has come to be 
confounded with N. falcilobum. 
5. N. FALOILOBUM, Hook. Sp. Fil. iv. 108. . Caudex erect, stout; stipes tufted, nearly 
invariably auricled; frond lanceolate, narrowed rather suddenly at base into the 
auricles; main rhachis and rhachis of the pinnz above pubescent; pinne closely 
pinnatifid nearly to the midrib; segments very oblique, oblong, narrowed upwards, 
the two lowest veins approaching the margin above the sinus ; sori halfway between 
the midrib and margin ; involucre glabrous, subpersistent.—Lastrea falciloba, Hook. 
in Kew Journ. Bot. ix. 338; Benth. Fl. Hongk. 455; Bedd. Ferns South. Ind. 
t. 105. Aspidium hirsutulum, Wall. Cat. 7083, type-sheet example A 
By rivers in and near the hills, alt. 0-3000 feet, from North Oude to Mishmee and 
Chittagong; very common.—Distrib. Burma, China. 
I have never seen this fern except by the banks of rivers between their low and high 
water mark, where it is almost universal, extending from Mymensingh in the plains deep 
into the Khasi and Sikkim mountains. The caudex is firmly rooted into the sand between 
the rocks, and usually stands a foot out of the ground.—This fern differs from N. (Lastrea) 
calearata, Bedd. Ferns South. Ind. t. 246, and from Blume’s Javan .N. calcaratum, in 
the auricled stipe, the cutting, the venation, the sori, and the involucres. 
Var. pubera, Wall. Cat. 838. Pinnæ pinnatifid less than halfway to the midrib, more 
or less auriculate at the base. 
 Nepaul, Wallich—tThis name is older than falcilobum, but there is another fern N. 
puberulum; and Aspidium puberum, Wallich, is a very unusual form of the species, if not 
distinct from our type, which Wallich placed under A. hirsutulum. 
6. N. canum, Hk. & Baker, Syn. Fil. 207. Tufted; stipe auricled; main rhachis hairy 
beneath; frond elongate, lanceolate, narrowed rather suddenly into auricles at the 
base; pinnæ pinnatifid deeply; segments oblong, hardly narrowed upwards, not 
very oblique to the midrib, lowest pair of veins running out at the sinus ; sori small, 
halfway between the midrib and margin; involucre glabrous or pilose, somewhat 
