THE FERNS OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA. 80 



gradually narrowed to both ends— so far as I can see. It is gradually narrowed 

 to the apes, but always more or less suddenly to the base. Only occasionally 

 it seems to be narrowed to the base equally on both sides ; but that sometimes 

 is because one side has been folded up in pressing, or when the shoulders are 

 narrower than usual. I should describe the frond as — lanceolate acuminate, one 

 half ending at the base before the other, both halves decurrent on the stipes. 

 It is as if two longitudinal halves of lance heads, of unequal length, were 

 joined together so that the points coincided. The shorter side is sometimes 

 more suddenly narrowed than the other. In the same plant some of the fronds 

 will have the shorter half of the lance head on one side, and others on the 

 other — according as, I think, they have sprung from one or other eide of the 

 rhizome. Specimens with fronds narrowed at both ends are probably P. fissum, 

 which have got mixed. The latter-mentioned species has sometimes rather 

 broad fronds, and it too sometimes narrows below rather unequally ; but it has 

 hardly any stipes, whereas P.Jiocculosum has a stipe of one-third or more the 

 length of the frond. 



P.Jiocculosum is very common in Dehra, and along the road and canal 

 avenues up to Rajpur at the foot of the Himalaya, alt. 2100-3000', chiefly 

 on Mango trees, which have rough bark ; but since I first observed it in 

 1879-80 it seems to have spread also to Toon trees (Cedrela toona), the bark of 

 which is much smoother. Above Rajpur, up to about 5000', it grows in the 

 forest on various kinds of trees, Bauklnia and others. It is also very abundant 

 in the forest in the Gola Valley, below Nairn Ta]. up to 5000' or higher, on 

 rocks as well as on trees. This plant does not shed its fronds annually : they 

 are persistent for a time, shrivelling up at the close of the rains, or during a 

 prolonged break in them, and uncurling and appearing quite fresh after a good 

 fall of rain in the dry season, or at the setting in of the next season's rains — 

 quite hygroscopic in fact. This may be a character of all the species of Nipho* 

 bolus, as it is of certain species of some other genera and subgenera — see 

 Asplenium exiguum above, and Polypodium (Phym.) Uneare below. Plants of 

 P.flocculosum may be taken from a tree in the cold, or dry hot, season, soaked 

 in water till they uncurl, and be then made good specimens of, though of course 

 without young fronds. Mr. Trotter took some plants from Dehra to Rawal- 

 pindi, and so treated them, and laid them into his herbarium. The rhizome 

 is slow growing and never found of any considerable length, and it throws up 

 only a few fronds each year, in a tuft. The fronds probably live on until the 

 rhizome dies off at the back end. 



Subgenus Drynaria, Bory. 

 28. P. propinquum, Wall., Syn. Fil. 367 ; O. R. 556. Drynaria 

 propinqua, Wall., Bedd. H. B. 339. 

 12 



