ICONES FILICUM SINICARUM 
JABYMIDID) -anshy/ 
LEUCOSTEGIA HOOKERI (Moore) Beddome 
POLYPODIACEA! 
LEUCOSTEGIA HOOKER! (Moore) Bedd. Hendb. Ferns Brit. Ind. 52 (1883). 
Acrophorus Hookeri Moore, Ind. Fil. 2 (1857, nom. nud.); Bedd. Ferns Brit. Ind. t. 95 (1865). 
Davallia Glarkei Baker in Hk. et Bak. Syn. Fil. ed. 2, gt (1874); C. Chr. Ind. Fil. 208 (1905), 
pro parte. 
Leucostegia Clarkei (Baker) C. Chr. Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 26: 294 (1931); Ind. Fil. Suppl. III. 
120 (1934). 
Araiostegia Clarkei Cop. Phil. Journ. Sci. 34: 241 (1927). 
Davallia dareaeformis Levinge ex Clarke, Trans. Linn. Soc. II. Bot. 1: 443 (1880), pro parte. 
Leucostegia dareaeformis Bedd. Ferns Brit. Ind. Suppl. 4 (1876), pro parte. 
Aratostegia parva Cop. Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot. 12: 399 pl. 53A (1931). 
Leucostegia parva C. Chr. Ind. Fil. Suppl. III. rar (1934). 
Rhizome thick, woody, wide-creeping, epigaeous, densely scaly; scales dense, golden 
brown, ovate-lanceolate, finely acuminate, spreading; frond approximate, stipe 5-10 cm 
long, reddish-brown, persistent, nitente, glabrous or with a few large deciduous scales, 
lamina deltoid-oblong, 7-15 cm long, to 7 cm broad, 4-pinnate or pinnatifid; pinnae 10- 
jugate, patent, sessile, to 5 cm long, ultimate pinnules pinnatifid with 3-4 small ligulate 
acute uninerved segments, I-2 mm long, 0.5 mm broad; texture thin herbaceous, pale 
green, glabrous; sort small at the base or forking of ultimate lobes, industum small, mem- 
branaceous, gray, persistent, broader than long. 
Yunnan: Ho-kin, Delavay, July 24, 1883; G. Forrest 15220; Lei-lung Shan, Forrest. 
15228 (1917); Muli, west of Yalung River, Rock 17850. Tibet: Ya-tung, Hobson (1897); 
Yunnan-tibetan border, Capt. Kingdom Ward 780. 
North India generally: Sikkim, Hooker fil et Thomson 315 (type). 
Rather a small fern characterized by the dense, large, broadly lanceolate scales 
with spreading long-acuminate tips and the dead persistent, reddish-brown soft stipes, 
which often break at 2-3 cm above base. In scale the species is very closely related to L. 
perdurans (Christ) Hieron. which differs by much larger size, without so charactetistically 
persistent dead stipes of previous years. In habit and size, it resembles L. Delavayi 
(Bedd.) Ching, but differs in rhizomatic scales being not ovate and imbriate. From L. 
dareaeformis (Hk.) Bedd., our fern differs in sessile pinnae, indusiate sori and shape and 
color of scales. 
The nomenclature of this fern has been very much confused. By priority, 
Acrophorus Hookeri Moore is found the legitimate name, because Moore’s nomen nudum 
was subsequently effectively described and illustrated by Beddome in 1865, and is much 
older than Davallia Clarket Baker. It was, however, unfortunate that Beddome himself 
later (Handb. p. 316) withdrew the figure under Acrophorus Hookeri in his Ferns Brit. 
Ind. t. 95 as being a mistake for Polypodium dareaeforme Hk., an exindusiate species, but 
his plate represents, in fact, a fern with fairly large indusia and, in this respect alone, 
agrees well with Moore’s species based upon a specimen collected in Sikkim by Hooker 
and Thomson. 
Plate 187. Fig. 1. Habit sketch (natural size). 2. Portion of frond, showing venation and 
position of sori (x 10). 3. Scale from rhizome (x 16). 
