670 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIII. 
PANJAB: Chamba.—Ravi Valley, Chadbent Forest 6,000’, McDonell, 1882. 
DISTRIB.—Asia : Japan—Yezo Prov., 7’ Abbé Faurie, 1889. 
Colonel Beddome described this species in 1889 from two fronds, then shown 
to him by Mr. McDonell and myself. Mr. McDonell's frond had a bit of 
rhizome attached : mine had only an incomplete stipe. He (Mr. McDonell) 
had sent it to me several years before as A. thelypteroides, but I then noted 
that it was different and probably new. A third frond of the same gathering 
in Chamba I found, in 1896, in the Calcutta Herbarium. 'These were the only 
three fronds Mr. McDonell had up to that time got, After returning to India 
he was deputed to Kashmir, to have charge of the Forest Department of that 
State ; and in 1891 he found A. McDonelli plentiful in several localities there 
(W. and 8. Kashmir, I think) ; and it seems probable that this fern has its 
headquarters in Kashmir, and that the Chamba station is an outlier. 
Mr. McDonell has explored Chamba thoroughly, and he is so sharp an 
observer that any other station there could hardly have escaped him. But, 
very curiously, the only specimen sent to Kew, as this fern, by its discoverer is, 
for me, A. thelypteroides. Mr. J. Marten, who has, more lately, been exploring 
in Chamba, does not seem to have found it, 
The place of this species is clearly alongside of A. thelypteroides, and nob 
where Colonel Beddome has placed it—after the A. nigripes group. ‘The 
sterile fronds of young plants are hardly distinguishable in the herbarium, 
from similar fronds of A. thelypteroides, the cutting being sometimes almost 
identical. The main points of difference are :—(1) the rhizome, which is 
distinctly, though sometimes slowly, creeping in A. MeDonelli, and erect ot 
only procumbent in the other species (but see the suggestion ab end of the 
last article) ; (2) the wider sinus between the segments or pinnules, which in 
A, McDonell extends nearer to the rhachis, and in well-developed specimens is 
square or often ob-cuneate at the base; (3) in A. thelypteroides, the frond 
natrows gradually at the base; in A. McDonelli, it is truncate, the lowest pair 
of pinne being hardly shorter than those above ; (4) the shape of the pinniz, 
which in A. thelypteroides is invariable (though hardly so wide as 1 in., as the 
Synopsis Fihcum has it), but in A. McDonelli varies with the size and age of 
the plant :—In one large specimen from MacLeod, I find the lowest three 
pairs to be pronouncedly lanceolate, and of the following dimensions : —lowest 
73 in. |, 25 br.; next pair above—84 in. |., 2 in. br.; third pair—8} in. 1, 
1% in, br—the pinnules or seements being ee cut down half-way be 
the costa; (5) in A. thelypteroides, the pinne are patent : in A. McDonelli in 
large specimens acutely ascendant, the lowest less so. (6) the venation of the’ 
two species is quite different : in A. thelypter aides it is simple ;-in'A. MeDonelli 
it is sub-pinnate, the vein forks, and one branch throws off one or even tio. 
