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THE FERNS OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA, 



Including Afghanistan, the Trans-Indus Protected States, and Kashmir : 

 arranged and named on the basis of Hooker and Baker's Synopsis Filicum, 

 and other works, with new Species added. 



By C. W. Hope. 



(Read before the Bombay Natural History Society, on 28th of Feb., 1899.) 



PART I.— INTRODUCTORY. 



The object of this paper is to bring into one view the information 

 regarding the ferns of the North- West Indian region which is to be 

 found in the standard English works on ferns, and to add to that the 

 results of my own observation and study, acquired during a long 

 residence in India and since I left that country. 



I have limited my review to the regions named in the title, because 

 my observations and study have been chiefly so limited. 

 Collections were made by me in parts of Kumaon in 1861, and 

 again in 1890 ; in the Dehra Dun district— at various levels — at inter- 

 vals from 1879 to 1895 ; in Simla in 1871, and again there and along 

 the Thibet Road eastward for some 50 miles in 1886. The late 

 Mr. H. C. Levinge began the study of ferns after seeing what 

 I collected at Simla in 1871 ; and he collected diligently at Darjeeling 

 and in other parts of Sikkim, in Bengal, and also in Kashmir and parts 

 of the North- West Himalaya, until he left India in 1883, and he never 

 failed to give me a share of what he got, even when I had nothing to give 

 him in exchange. Mr. C. B. Clarke also has several times given me 

 generous contributions of ferns collected in Sikkim, Assam, and other 

 parts of India. And Mr. Gustav Mann, whose fame as a botanist and 

 collector has been so often signalised by plants being named after him, 

 has given me in exchange for North- West Indian ferns about 150 species 

 collected by himself in Assam, where he was Conservator of Forests for 

 many years. Since the year 1881 I have from time to time seen and 

 examined all the ferns collected in the North -Western Himalaya, 

 Kashmir, and the Trans-Indus Protected States by Mr. J. F. Duthie, 

 the Director of the Botanical Department, Northern India, and his 

 collectors, and have generally shared in the distribution made by him ; 

 and 1 have several times studied the ferns in the herbarium at Saharan- 

 pur, which, under Mr. Duthie's charge, have increased from one small 

 bundle to a very considerable collection. Since the year 1880 the 



