MR. C. B. CLARKE ON THE FERNS OF NORTHERN INDIA. 537 
row very close round the margin of the frond; sometimes they are terminal on included 
veinlets. 
A7. N. neverosorum, Hk. & Baker, Syn. Fil. 2nd ed. 504. Rhizome creeping exten- 
sively ; stipes solitary, erect, with lanceolate-linear brown persistent scales near their 
base; frond erect, lanceolate, hardly narrowed at the base, 1-pinnate; pinnz 4-8 in., 
narrow-oblong, acuminate-caudate, subsessile, very entire, the lowest never furcate, 
often with auricles at their base.—Aspidium rostratum, Wall. Cat. 383 partly. 
A. grandifolium, Mett. Farngatt. Pheg..&.Asp.124, exemp. authent. Sagenia 
heterocarpa, Bedd. Ferns Brit. Ind. t. 47. : 
In wet flats near rivers in Assam and Chittagong.—Distrib. Burma. 
A very distinct fern, forming large groves about 6 feet high, the separate fronds so 
erect that till I had the plant in my hand I never suspected it to be a fern. Herbarium 
scraps of it are much jumbled with N. polymorphum, which, however, has the lower 
pinne more stalked, often furcate, the pinnz less entire, less rostrate, and is without 
the club-shaped auricles at the base of the pinns so very frequently seen in Æ. hete- 
rosorum. The sori are sometimes confluent both in JY. heterosorum and in N. poly- 
morphum.—Mettenius’s description (J. c.) copied by Hook. Sp. Fil. iv. 58, is referred to 
N. polymorphum by Baker in Hk. & Baker, Syn. Fil. 298; and probably correctly, 2. e. it 
seems that Mettenius described from an example of JV. polymorphum, but the example he 
named for Kew with his own hand JY. grandifolium is N. heterosorum. 
48. N. PoLYwonPHUM, Hk. & Baker, Syn. Fil. 297. Stipes tufted, paleaceous towards 
the base; main rhachis yellow or brown; frond 1-3 feet, lanceolate, broadest at 
the base, 1-pinnate; pinnæ oblong or elliptic, acuminate, crenate lobed or toothed ; 
lowest pair distinctly stalked, often furcate, sometimes again pinnate.—Aspidium 
polymorphum, Wall. Cat. 382; Hook. Sp. Fil. iv. 54, excl. syn. ; Bedd. Ferns South. 
Ind. tt. 116, 117. A. rostratum, Wall. Cat. 383 chiefly and as to type sheet. 
In and near the hills, alt. 0—5000 feet, from Gurwhal to Mishmee and Chittagong, 
abundant.—Distrib. Burma, South India, Ceylon. 
In some of my specimens in young fruit the involucres are exactly aspidioid. Bed- 
dome doubts, Ferns Brit. Ind. Suppl. 14, whether 4. repandum, Willd.; Hk. & Baker, 
Syn. Fil. 258, be even a good var. of N. polymorphum: the two are doubtless congeneric 
and closely allied. Willdenow probably really meant our common JV. polymorphum by 
his term A. repandum, which is the older name ; but the fern preserved at Kew as £. re- 
pandum is one collected by Cuming in the Philippines, and differs somewhat from our 
N. polymorphum ; in short, greatly resembles Bedd. Ferns South. Ind. t. 117. 
Var. Simonsii, (sp. Hk. & Baker, Syn. Fil. 504. Main rhachis shining black or mainly 
‘so, otherwise exactly as W. polymorphum.— Aspidium Simonsii, Bedd. Ferns Brit. Ind. 
Suppl. p. 15, t. 367. 
Sikkim and Bhotan.—I cannot see that this is separable from many forms of X. poly- 
. morphum, as from var. macrocarpum, Bedd. 
