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



mention the nature of the candex or rhizome. As synonyms, Beddome gave in 

 the H. B. the three names he had given for P. paludosum, namely, P. 

 Irunmum, Wall. Cat. 333, P. longipes^ Wall, Cat. 316, and P. adnatum. Wall. 

 Cat. 328 ; and he added a fourth, P. GriffitMi, Hook. Sp. Fil. 

 IV, 236. Mr. Clarke gives paludosiim and hngipes as synonyms of 

 P. distaiis^ and resuscitates P. adnahmi as a variety of it, and he 

 gives P. hnmneiim as a synonym of var. adnata (sp.), Wall., besides creating two 

 other new varieties. Of P. distcms he said — " Stipts tufted." 



Hooker, in Sp. Fil. IV, p. 244, did not give P, distcms either as a species 

 or as a synonym of P. paludosum^ and as to the caudex of the last named 

 plant merely said — " caudex ? ". The Si/nopsts Filicum says nothing as to 

 the caudex of P. distcms, for which it gives P. paludosum^ Bl,, as a synonym 

 along "with P. GrifjithU^ Hook., of which it is said that it appears to be a form 

 with subeutire lobes. Clarke said of P. distans — *' Veiy difficult to distinguish 

 from Gijnmogramme aurifa. Hook." (winch has an extensively creeping rhizome) 

 . . . '' the rhizome is rarely present in herbaria ;" and he noted thnt Beddome, 

 in his Suppt. F. B. I. of 1876, p. 24, doubts if G. aurita is more than a form 

 of P. distans. And Clarke went on to say — '' the rhizome is very different," 

 which I tliink may be taken to imply that he knew that P. distans had an 

 erect caudex or rhizome. By the time he published his Handbook, Beddome 

 seems to have become satisfied of the generic distinctness of the two plants. 



So much for the books I am reviewing. I will now deal with the specimens 

 in the principal public herbariums in the United Kingdom. In the Kew Her- 

 barium, a specimen, named -P. distans, collected by Jacquemont, which otherwise 

 is P. late-repens, has no rhizome, but the base of the stipes is curved upwards, 

 as if it sprung from a horizontal rhizome. Other specimens in Kew with erect 

 caudices will be found referred to above under P. distans. Some of them 

 collected by Mr. Clarke show well the erect caudex and tufted stipes of 

 P. distans, and his var. minor. 



In Wallich's collection, in the Linnean Society's Herbarium, there are 

 specunens of the tlnee species, which have been treated by our authors as 

 synonyms for P. distans. Of P. Irwmeum Wall. Cat. 333, specimens from 

 Kumaun, R. B. 1827, and Wallich, Napalia 1821, though they are without 

 caudices, I should from their cutting put under P. distans. The next sheet, I 

 should say, is certainly large P. late-r^ens ; the stipe is nearly complete, 

 but there is no rhizome : it is ticketed '' Pol i/podium donhtM," but has 

 been numbered in pencil 333. Pohjpodiiim longipes, Wall. Cat. 316, 

 Napalia 1821, though there is no rliizome, is certainly P. /f/^e-rt'^ws. "P. 

 adnatum^ Wall, in Herb. 1823, Napalia 1821," is very large ?ai;e-rej?ms. 



