■TEE FERNS OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA. 469 



Turning again to the three individual plants mentioned in the 

 Synopsis as being varieties of the imaginary compreheDsive species 

 No. 18, A, aculeatum, I find some difficulty in ascertaining their 

 distinguishing characters. Swartz's description is :— 



" frondibus bipinnatis, pinnis pinnatis, pinnulia ovatis acutis sub- 

 falcatis ciliato-spinosis, subtus pilosis, raohi paleacea, stipite 

 strigoso, Smith britt. 



Polypodmm aculeatum, L. 



Polypodium setiferum, Forsk fl. acg. ar. 



Pluk. ph. t. 180. f. 1. 3, Moris, p. 14. fc-3. f, 15. 

 (Schkuhr 1. c. t. 39.— W. M.) Europa. Arabia, Cap. bon. 

 spei." 

 This shows clearly that the fern Swartz described had ciliate spines on 

 the pinnules, and therefore was soft and not prickly ; but the rest of the 

 ■description is too vague, and the only substantial difference in his des- 

 cription of his A. lobatwn is-^^^ pinnis approximatis." Swartz seems to 

 have done little more than transfer Linnseus's plant from Polypodium 

 to Aspidiwn ; but Willdenow, only two years later, interpolated in 

 Linnasus'shst A. an.<7w/«fe, and from his descriptions of that and A, 

 aculeatum it is clear that under the new name he recognised a fern 

 with a more compound cutting and a laser texture than he saw A, 

 aculeatum had. He, however, gave only Hungaria as the habitat for 

 A. angulare, whereas now it seems to be a very widely distributed 

 species. 



E. J. Lowe, in " British Ferns, 1891," the latest authority I can 

 find says : — " A, aculeatum Sw. — Pinnules stalklets, with acute 

 -angled or wedge- shaped bases ; whilst in A. angulare the pinnules 

 are stalked and their bases obtuse-angled. In A. aculeatum the fronds 

 are darker and more shining, stouter and more leathery in texture, 

 and the habit of the plant is more erect." Mr. T. Moore who 

 considered them distinct species, said the chief differences between 

 the two were — the obtuse angle of the stalked pinnule of P. angu- 

 lare, and the acute-angled, or wedge-shaped base of the sessile 

 pinnule of the more divided states of P. aculeatum. Mr. James 

 Britten, in "European Ferns," says: — "So far as om* experience 

 goes they are not often found together, but they contrast very 

 , effectively with each other when planted in a rockeiy, the stiff 

 upright fronds of P. aculeatum towering above the softer and more 

 drooping ones of P. angulare." To a sheet in the Kew Herbarium 

 (general collection) marked in Sir W. J. Hooker's handwriting — 



