68 Ferns of British India and Ceylon. 



The Himalayas from Kumaon eastwards ; Khasya ; Chittagong ; 

 Madras, Western mountains ; Ceylon ; Malay Peninsula. 



(Also in China, Japan, Malay Islands, Polynesia, and Tropical 

 America.) 



Type. Ultimate segments rhomboidal, subentire, or slightly 

 crenated. Davallia rhomboidea, Wall. Cat. 257. 



Var. /3 hirta. Ultimate segments more or less deeply cut. 



Rhomboidea (Microlepia polypodioides, Bedd. F. S. I. t. 15) 

 can easily be picked out in the herbarium : it is very uniform in char- 

 acter, and does not run into hirta in cultivation ; it is very common 

 throughout India and in Ceylon. 



The variety hirta [Bedd. F. S. I. 256) is a much more variable 

 plant, and I refer to this Wall. Cat. 262 puberula; 263 pilosula ; 264 

 virens ; 2,218 Roxburghii, and 261 pyramidata. These are all so 

 closely allied that it is impossible to keep them up as separate 

 varieties, and they besides run one into the other. There are two 

 varieties in Southern India and Ceylon : one very hairy and the other 

 nearly quite glabrous, but differing in no way beyond the pubescence. 

 The supposed species, flaccida (Bedd. F Sup. t. 353) I now consider 

 only a form of hirta, as I cannot distinguish it in the herbarium, it 

 is said to be very flaccid, and to have fronds ten and twelve feet long. 

 I have seen no forms anything like so large in Southern India or 

 Ceylon, yet some Ceylon and South Indian specimens are referred to 

 it. Wallich's pyramidata has the pinnules closer together and more 

 elongated than any of the other forms, but otherwise it is quite like 

 hirta. 



GENUS XIX.— STENOLOMA. (Fee.) 

 (Stenos, narrow; loma, border.) 

 Fronds bi-tripinnatifid, ultimate segments cuneiform, growing 

 gradually wider from the base to the apex; veins dichotomously 

 forked, venules free ; indusium terminal on the segments, forming a 

 compressed suborbicular, or cup-shaped pouch, only open at the top ; 

 rhizome creeping ; stipes tufted, not articulated upon the rhizome. 



