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



pale ; the narrower scales are also, sometimes at least, bi-coloured. The scales 

 of the European plant, whether broad or narrow, are generally pale, self- 

 coloured, or if bi-coloured merely with a darker shade towards the centre. 



2. Habit of plants. The European plant has fronds with comparatively 

 short stout stipes, thickly clothed with scales all the way up, forming a stout 

 compact crown, from which very numerous fronds spread out at a greater or 

 less angle from the perpendicular. The Himalayan plants appear to have 

 comparatively few fronds, generally with long stipes which quickly taper ofif 

 and are not densely clothed far above their bases ; but sometimes stipes are only 

 6 in. long to a frond 22 — 25 in. long by 9 — 10 in. broad. Growing on steep 

 ground in forest, as they generally do, the fronds of the large plants (or of the 

 large broad form), being of lax habit, bend downwards, and are sometimes found 

 overhanging and dipping their tips into the rills which run down the rocky 

 hill sides. The fronds vary much in size and shape, even in the same station. 

 5 ins. to 6 ins. is a common length for the middle pinn® of a frond, and the 

 lowest pinn^ are often not much reduced ; a lanceolate frond is rare, and then 

 the lowest pinnae are not mere auricles. I have the upper three-fourths or so of 

 a frond I gathered in the Dehra Dun in 1880 (why now incomplete I cannot 

 recollect) winch has pinnee fully 9 ins. long, and this portion of the frond 

 is 23 ins. long. Fronds from Mussooree, 5-6000' alt., reach to 34 ins. 

 in length by nearly 1 ft. in breadth, unstretched, beside stipes 13 — 35 ins. 

 or 4 ft. in total height. But I have, also from Mussooree, other fronds of 

 mature plants, fertile, with simpler cutting, which are less than 1 ft. high, 

 including the stipes, by only 3 ins, broad. AH sizes between these extremes are 

 met with. The British plant rarely, I think, has fronds over 6 ins. broad. 

 The latest specimen, from Jaunsar, the hill tract of the Dehra Diin district, is 

 Gamble's No. 26616, April 1898 : a frond and incomplete stipe, the frond 38 

 in. by 26 in., and part of stipe 21 in., total over 5 ft. high. The pinnules 

 have up to ten lobes. The plant is very soft. Dr. Christ says this is var. 

 latjanense of A. acuUatum, Filicine Warburg, Monsunia, Bd. I, p. 77. 



3. Cutting of fronds and pinn(£. The pinnte are always distant, or dis- 

 tinctly separated ; and the pinnules so also, and distinctly stalked. In the 

 large, broad, form the pinnse are very acuminate, and even caudate ; but in 

 the smaller they taper regularly from base to tip, as in the European plant. 

 The pinnules vary in shape from — " short ovate-acumuiate with a broad auricle 

 ^ in. long to ^ in. broad, lobed on the front and toothed on the back," to — 

 " falcate, f in. long by f in. broad, lobed though unequally on both sides," and 

 to " narrow, falcate^ acuminate, | in, long, by only ^ in. broad at base across 

 the auricle." I have never seen the auricle free ; and the longest pinnules 

 are seldom cut down nearly to the costa ; whereas the European plant is 



