THE FERNS OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA. 72^ 



I have two plants of this from Mr. Duthie, one without a ticket, but both 

 are, I beh'eve, from the Tehri Garhwal locahty. Both are sterile. They are 

 tufts, on an apparently erect caudex. The stipes are glabrous ; and the veins 

 are distant and simple. Some stipes are longer than the fronds. Clarke makes 

 three varieties besides the type : the Garhwal plant may be his var. decipims, 

 which Beddome, in his Hand-book, thought might be a distinct species, but, 

 in the Supplement to that work, retained as a variety. In their " Supplemen- 

 tary Note on the Ferns of Northern India," read before the Linnean Society 

 3rd November 1881, (Jom-n. Linn. Soe. XXV.) will be found descriptions of 

 five varieties or forms, (including the type ?) of this species, introduced 

 thus : — 



" Varietates et formse a C. B. Clarke sub unica specie enumeratse, 

 ex sententia Beddome 2, vel 3, ex sententia Bakeri 3 vel plures species 

 bonas constituunt : sed species a Baker propositse cnm species 

 Beddomei non conterminas sunt. Sequitur enumeratio formarum — " 

 for which I must refer to the paper itself. In his " Summary of New Ferns " 

 of 1891 Mr. Baker does not allude to this joint paper, but merely says that 

 Mr. Clarke in his original paper of 1880 describes three Himalayan varieties. 

 And Beddome, in his Supplement of 1882, refers to Clarke and Baker's joint 

 paper only by implication, gives two varieties besides the type, and s^eparates 

 another as a distinct species. I have not seen this fern, or any of its varieties 

 growing ; and as none of these authorities has given a habitat for any of 

 them west of Nepal, I might say no more than that the fern I give here is 

 quite distinct from any other on my list, and that it is new to N,-W. India. 

 In this, as in many other cases, I consider the mode of vernation all important ; 

 and — notwithstanding the statement in the Synopsis Filicum — I find that 

 in all the specimens named N. gracikscens, Hook., and var. decipiens, this seems 

 to be the same, namely — rhizome decumbent or iiorizontal, slow-growing, 

 throwing up fronds in tufts, and dying off behind, probably annually. A. 

 glanduliferum, Kze., is undoubtedly a distinct species, for it has a widely creep- 

 ing and branching, slender, rhizome, which I should think must continue to 

 throw up fronds at intervals (of distance) for a whole growing season at least 

 and in a moist climate, probably without cessation, thouah the binder part 

 must also continually be perishing. Mr. Clarke called this fern N. repentulum 

 n. sp., until he found that it had already been named and dencribed. 



6. N. calcaratum. Hook. ; Syn. Fil. 274. Aspidium calcamtum Bl. 

 En. Fil. Jav., p. 159. 



N.-W. P. : Brit. Garh. : Bhainskil, near Parewa, Kotal Eange, about 8000', Coll. 

 Inayat (native collector), June 1902, No. 26043 of Saharanpur Herbarium ; iV. Oudh, 

 Forests, R. Thompson 1870. 



DiSTBiB. — N. India to Ceylon, Burma, Hong Kong, Philippines , Malaccas . 



