260 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIV. 



I noted this fern as being new to me in Mr. Trotter's collection made in 

 Kmnaun in 1891, and brought by him then to Mussooree, and soon after- 

 wards I received a specimen from Kashmir, collected by Mr, McDonell, as 

 it tm-ned out, six days before Mr. Trotter got his specimen, and, though they 

 somewhat differed, I referred them to the same species. I described and 

 named the plant as A. Tr often, under the impression that Mr. Trotter was 

 the first to gather it : there was already an A. 3IcDo?ielU, Bedd,, and Mr. 

 Trotter well deserved the compliment. I sent the description to a London 

 botanical periodical for publication, but it never appeared. As will be seen, 

 however, from the entry above, under the habitat " Kumaun ", both Trotter 

 and MoDoaell mast yield place as discoverers to Straohey and Winterbottom, 

 who found the fern in 1848, at what is probably almost exactly Trotter's 

 station, there being only a difference in the spelling of the vernacular name 

 and an estimated difference of only 800 feet in the altitude. As Mr. Trotter 

 was always very particular about the spelhng of the names of localities, I 

 think it probable that Straohey and "Winterbottom 's locality was Khati, and 

 not Kathi. Their specimen, which is in the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic 

 Garden of Calcutta, has no rhizome ; but otherwise it agrees exactly with Trot- 

 ter's. It is distinctly a Diplozium, with curved sori long for their breadth ; and 

 it differs also in cutting from Athyrium crenatum, Rupr., the habitats re- 

 corded for which are— Scandinavia, by way of Siberia, to Japan. Mr. Mc- 

 Donell collected some more specimens of his plant in Kashmir in 1894, and 

 sent one, with other ferns, to Colonel Beddome, who reduced it to A. crenatum, 

 Rapr., saying that it exactly agreed with Japan specimens. Colonel Bed- 

 dome had not then seen the Kumaun plant. But Mr. McDonell's Kashmir 

 specimens, though they are smaller, more compound in cutting, and more 

 delicate, agree in rhizome and sori with the Japan specimens of A. equami- 

 gerum, with which species I became acquainted on returning to England 

 in 1896. Mr. MoDonell wrote in 1895 — " As to Trotieri, it seemed to me 

 that the plant i got in September 1891 is not quite the same as that 

 I sent last year ; the former was growing in a cave, the latter is common 

 on hill sides, growing with Filix-mas, under cover of trees, in shady 

 places, " 



Mr. Marten's specimens from Chamba, and Mr. Gamble's from the Raien- 

 garh Forests, are large, and intermediate in cutting between the Kumaun 

 and the Kashmh plants. Mr. Duthie's Kashmir specimens. No. 12630, are 

 more like J . cren«'to2, though some of them differ considerably. His No. 

 14100 quite matches a specimen from Japan, Yezo — Forks de Yiibari, 

 Faurie No. 8111, 3rd July 1892 ; but the rhizomes are not complete 

 enough. 



