599 

 THE FERNS OF THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY. 



BY 



E, Blatter, S.J. 



It is strange that the ferns, though being distinguished by an 

 infinite variety in the form and division of their leaves and the ele- 

 gant beauty of their whole appearance, received so little attention in 

 the Bombay Presidency on the part of botanists as well as of ama- 

 teurs. An explanation of the fact may be found in the circumstance 

 that just near the centres of human commerce in the Presidency the 

 fern vegetation is very scanty or almost ml. Other parts with a 

 rich growth of ferns are inaccessible for most of us during the four 

 rainy months of the year, when plant-life is at its best. A second 

 reason might be the difficulty that is generally experienced in the 

 identification of the members of tin-; class of plants. The conse- 

 quence is that the botanical literature regarding our ferns is not a 

 rich one. Of those that wrote expressely on the Flora of the Presi- 

 dency, Graham 1 is the first to give some information on the crypto- 

 gamic vegetation. He mentions 2;j species of ferns with notes as 

 to the places where they had been collected. Dalzell and Gibson 2 did 

 not add anything to the knowledge of the cryptogams. We read in 

 the preface to their " Bombay Flora " : " The Cryptogamic portion 

 of the catalogue has, in order to meet the present wants of our readers, 

 been literally transcribed from that of Mr. Graham, but we hope on 

 a future opportunity to be ahle to present it to the public in a more 

 campact and enlarged form." Whether their hope was ever realized 

 I am not able to say; at least I could not find any further publication 

 on the subject by either of the two botanists. In 188G, H. M. 

 Birdwood 3 wrote a catalogue of the Flora of Matheran in which he 

 enumerates 12 species of ferns as growing in that place. In 18S7 4 , 

 he published a catalogue of the Flora of Mahableshwar and Matheran, 

 mentioning 14 species as occurring in both places. In a final revision 



1 J. Giaharn : Catalogue of the Plants growing in Bombay and its Vicinity, 1839. 



- A. Dalzell and A. Gibson : The Bombay Flora, Bombay, 1861, 



'■'■ H. M. Birdwood : A Catalogue of the Flora of Matheran; in B. N. H. Journal Vol. I, 

 p. 203. 



1 H. M. Birdwood : A Catalogue of the Flora of Mahableshwar and Matheran ; in 

 Journal. B. X. H. S., Vol. II, p. 107. 



