THE FERNS OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA. 445 
This next variety Clarke calls intermedia, and describes thus :— 
“ Frond lax, more coarsely cut, involucres often + inch—O. lucidum? 
Bedd., Ferns Brit. Ind., t. 21.” 
A specimen, got by Strachey and Winterbottom in Kumaun, at 7500’ alt-, 
marked by Clarke as var. intermedia, anda few others so marked—among 
them one got in Sikkim—Lachen 9-10,000', by J. D. Hooker—are, for me, 
typical multisectum, Mr, Clarke says—“ This form, exactly figured by Colonel 
Beddome, seems half-way between O. japonicum, Kze., and O. multisectum, 
EF, Henderson. And he adds—“ After going through the Kew material with 
me, F’, Henderson would still prefer to make O. multisectum a species.” After 
reading this, Beddome, in his Handbook, said that his t, 21 was taken from 
muléisectum, and that the two varieties of O. japonicum differ very slightly, if 
at all. A variety which, its author says, is exactly figured by another author, 
but which that other author says he figured from a specimen of another variety, 
may safely be said to be non-existent. I have collected specimens of U. muilti- 
sectum from uncongenial localities, comparatively small and narrow, and even 
with brown instead of straw-coloured involucres, but I have attributed their 
differences fyom the full-sized plant grown in good soil solely to circumstances, 
There is really no passage from multisectuim to japonicum, and if there were, I 
should prefer to make the latter a variety of the former, because—in the North- 
West Himalaya at least—it is much the rarer, That O. multisectum has been 
the later recognised plant is no reason for holding that it is a variety of 
O. japonicum, Clarke and Baker may be right in saying, in their joint paper 
of 1888, that the rhizomes of the two ferns are altogether the same ; 
but I think that the fronds of O. multisectum generally spring up closer 
together than those of 0. japonicwm do, as they often form dense bushes, 
or even beds,—as in Simla, where this fern carpets the ground under the 
Deodars, and even in the open. I have a tuft, from Tehri Garhwal, collected 
by Duthie, with 5 or 6 fronds in a mass, mounted on one sheet, And it is 
generally impossible to spread out even a single frond, in pressing it, so that all 
the pinn shall be separate and distinct. U. japonicum, in N-W. India, is a 
shy, solitary plant: O. multisectwm is bold and gregarious. In one of the few 
stations for it I have seen in Mussooree O. japonicum was growing inside a 
thorny bush; and Major MacLeod writes that in the Ramganga Valley, 
Kumaun, it grows in dense grassy undergrowth. Barren fronds are, perhaps, 
the more numerous, but Ido not think there is any dimorphism. Nor do 
I find any dimorphism in 0. multisectum, though Clarke begins his description 
with—“ Fertile frond very finely cut.” 
Clarke says of 0. multisectum—“ Ripe capsules not numerous.”’ I should 
say that the capsules generally ripen, and that most fertile fronds are very 
