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



*' an P. luctuosum, Kze." ; and, again, *' luctuosum, Kze. is the same as my 

 No. 20 A. Tsus-Simense, v. n. 20." 



Christ places A. luctuosum as a var. of 6. P. lobatum, and says of it : — 



" Distinct, from its deltoid form, not elongated, and with a frond the lowest pinnaa 

 of which are the longest. The frond is borne on a bare stipe, of one-third to one- 

 half the length of the frond. Throughout (_e7i outre') the scaly covering of the 

 rhachis consists of black, long, and very narrow scales. The basal scales are narrow, 

 blackish. The plant is of less height (plus basse), the pinnae (pinnules ?) are slightly 

 auricled, subsessile, decurrent (except the superior basal pinnule which is broadly 

 stalked), stoutly toothed, but not aristate. 



" Kunze''s name, relating as it does to the black covering of the plant, very well 

 indicates its peculiarity. 



" Habitat.— Southern Africa ; Boschberg,<McOwan), Drakenberg (Rehman, 7204)." 



Hooker's description of A. {Polyst.) Tsus'Simense is long and minute. As 

 to Habitat he gives only the Island of Tsus Sima ; and he adds—"! find no 

 described species to accord with this. The scales of the caudex are singular 

 in shape and peculiarly black ; the upper portion of the fond is pinnated, 

 the rest regularly bipinnate, the lowest pair of pinnse deflexed." In the Kew 

 Herbarium, on the same sheet with Dickias' specimen from Yokohama, is a 

 larger frond with ticket — " Tolijztidium liKtmsum^ Perie Bush, British 

 Kaffraria, May 7th, 1861, W. D'Urban." Opposite this Su- William Hooker 

 has written in pencil — '* black hairs on the rachis — hence true luctuosum of 

 Kze., in Linn. 10 p." Another sheet from South Africa (a plant with caudex 

 and four fronds in a tuft) has two tickets, one written by Baker (?) — Aspidium 

 luctuosum, Kze., No. 11, Natal, Buchanan ; and the other, Buchanan's owa 

 ticket, is (reed. 8/69) "11. A very fair specimen — natural colour well pre- 

 served " (it is pale olive greeu) : "Grows in same bush and similar places 

 with Aspid. aculeatum, of which lla is our ordinary type, only not at all so 

 pleatifuUy. If ouly a variety, it is a very marked one. But is it indeed so ? " 



14, A. setosum, Wall. Cat. 371. A. aculeatum, Sw. var. 6, setomm. 

 Wall. Cab. 371, 0. R. 510. Poly stichum aculeatum, Sw. var. 9 selosum, Wall., 

 B«dd. H. B. 209. 



N,-W. P.: Brit, ani T. Gar Jitoal— 8000', P. W. Mackinnon, April 1881 ; Xurnaun— 

 R. Blink, fide Wallicb, in Herb. Hort. Kew ; near Khati 7700', S. & W. 1848 ; Pindar 

 Gorge— Khati 7000', Trotter 1891. 



msnuiB.— Asia : N. Ind. (Him.)— Nepal, Wallicli 1820 ; Sikkim. 



This plant is not mentioned by Baker, either in the " /Synopsis J' or in his 

 •' Summary of New Ferns." Clarke, while giving it as a mere variety of 

 A. aculeatum f says : — 



« This seems to me more worthy of specific rank than many other species of 

 Pnlystichum retained by Mr. Baker. The series is not merely defined by being 

 fibrillose on the surface of the frond beneath ; the whole set is remarkably uniform 

 in cutting ; the frond is large, long-lanccohitc ; the primary pinnas numerous, 



