538 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XII. 



It is improbable that Mr. Blauford, at the time the remarks above extracted 

 were -^Titten, had ever seen a specimen of the N.-E. ludiau N. prolixum with 

 a rhizome attached ; and I conclude that, though nothiiag was said in the 

 " Synopsis " about the rhizome, he believed with Mr. Clarke that the caudex 

 was erect and the stipes tufted, and yet held that the Simla fem, with a caudex 

 decumbent or shortly creeping, and with other differences, varied only slightly 

 from JV. prolixum. He does not say that it gi-ows in isolated plants, with 

 decumbent or shortly creepmg caudices, and stipes iia a tuft ; and I am 

 confident that bad he carried his investigation farther he would have found the 

 widely creeping and branchmg rhizome of JSF. npens throwing up fronds at 

 intervals, and fonning a more or less extensive bed. 



N. longicmpe, Baker, from Madagascar, seems to be N. repens, but the 

 rhizome is wanting. The West African specimeti cited above is, or was, in the 

 Nephrodmm molU bundle at Kew. The largest frond of N. repens I have is 4 ft. 

 long, including the auricled base, by 10 in. br.; but a specimen in Mr. Gamble's 

 collection, his No. 17824, from Sikkim I think, mounted on three sheets, is 

 6 ft. 1. by 1|- ft. br., 2 ft. of that length being merely auricled, the 

 auricles not papUionate ; the stipe is wanting. The fern is probably rare in 

 Eastern India : Clarke's No. 44G52, from Shillong, is perhaps the only 

 representative from Assam. I have seen a few specimens of a plant, with 

 glands at base of pinnae and papilionate aiu"icles on the stipe, from Sikkim and 

 the Madras Presidency, which have portions of an erect caudex, and these I 

 think ought to be called N. ochtJiodes, Kze. (under Aspidhim). Beddome's 

 figure m F.S.I., t. 106, seems to be a representative of this last-mentioned plant, 

 and it t^hows the papilionate auricles, though only two pairs of them. N. repens 

 loves moisture, and grows by the sides of water-com'ses and on swampy groimd 

 below springs. 



( To ie continued. ) 



