114 NEPHRODIUM, § LASTREA. 



with a dense mass of very large satiny scales mixed with soft 

 golden and silky hairs, stipites a span to a foot long stout black 

 brown only at the base (the rest and the rachises) clothed 

 with very large satiny scales ovate and acuminate mixed with 

 narrower ones, those upwards gradually pass into rich golden 

 soft hair-like and flexuose scales, fronds 1 5-2 feet long 10 

 inches to a foot wide broad ovate-oblong scarcely acuminate 

 pinnate or almost universally bipinnate, primary pinnae sub- 

 petiolate oblong obtuse 4-5 inches long Ih inch broad, pin- 

 nules sessile oblong deeply pinnatifid, lobules strongly den- 

 tate, the teeth divaricating with a very sharply acuminated and 

 setaceous point, veinlets forked, sori mostly on the upper 

 half of the frond as many as there are lobules to the pin- 

 nule. — Lastrea barbigera, T. Moore, in Herb. Hook. 



Hab. Kamaon (mixed with Brunonianum), Wallich, n. 344, Strachey (same 

 \ocz\\iy &% Brunoniamim). Simla, Col. Bates. Sikkim-IIimalaya, 12,000-13,000 

 feet. Hooker fil. et Thomson, n. 258. — The scaly clothing of this plant is the 

 most beautiful of any Fern I know, especially in the young and nascent state of 

 it. I have before me a specimen of a quite undeveloped frond, 5 inches long, the 

 frondose portion still rolled in like the head of a crosier ; the young stipes is a 

 mass of the brightest chestnut coloured scales that can be conceived, \% inch 

 long, and some of the scales ^ of an inch broad, the head or crosier-part 2 

 inches broad is a golden mass of similar scales. In another young frond, quite 

 erect, the pinn?e, 1-1:^ inch long, resemble a fox's tail in miniature: these are 

 clothed with rich golden silken hairs concealing all that is green. In the fully 

 developed fronds, much of this vestiture still remains attached to the rachises and 

 costae. But beautiful as all this is, and bipiimate as is almost every specimen, I 

 fear that it is only a more perfect form of N. Brunonianum, and as such I believe 

 it was considered by all the collectors ; the Latter form being more alpine (elev. 

 15,000 feet), thence becoming stunted, contracted, and black in the stipes and 

 main rachis. 



96. N. (Lastrea) crassifolium,Yi.o6k. ; stipites 1^ foot long 

 and as well as the rachis dirty-brown glossy, fronds H foot 

 long ovato-lanceolate acuminated firm-membranaceous olive- 

 green pinnate pinnatifid at the apex, subdimorphous, pinnae 

 4-5 inches long finely acuminated, sterile ones elliptical-ob- 

 long 1-1 ^ i'lch broad with one or two pairs of the inferior 

 veins united (subnephrodioid),yer^i/e ones oblong-lanceolate 

 f of an inch broad with the lower veinlets approximate but 

 free (lastreoid), both with a truncate or more or less cuneate 

 subpetiolated base, the margin about halfway down pinna- 

 tifid with oval subfalcate lobes, sori copious dorsal near the 

 middle of all the veinlets. — Aspidium, Bl. En. Fil. Jav. jj. 

 158. Lastrea lata, /. Sm. hi Hook, .fourn. Bot. ]j. 412 {name 

 only). Aspid., Kze. Metten. Aspid. p. 95. L. similis, J. 

 Sm. I. c. {name only.) 



