Ferns of British India and Ceylon. ioi 



pinnules on the lower side much larger than the others, and 

 deeply lobed with linear-oblong segments ; rachis and costa dark 

 coloured and polished like the stipe ; texture herbaceous, lateral 

 veins once forked ; sori in broad marginal lines. Langs and Fisch. 

 let. 21. Pteris geraniifolia, Bedd. F. S. I. t. 37. Pellaea geranii- 

 folia, Hook. Syn. Fil. p. 146. 



Western forests of the Madras Presidency, and in Ceylon up to 

 4,000 feet, very common. 



(Also in Tropical America, Polynesian Islands, North China, 

 Cape Colony, and the Mascareen Islands.) 



3. Pell^ea Tamburii. {Hook.) Stipes 6-9 inches long, erect, 

 naked, chestnut-brown, polished ; fronds about 6 inches each way, 

 subcoriaceous, whitened beneath, deltoid, with three principal lobes, 

 the terminal one cut down nearly to the rachis into several broad 

 opposite lanceolate segments, of which the upper ones are entire and 

 the lower ones larger and sinuated ; lateral lobes with the segments 

 on the upper side nearly entire, but those on the lower side prolonged 

 and again deeply lobed, the largest entire divisions about 1 inch deep, 

 i inch broad at the base ; rachis polished ; indusium brownish, con- 

 tinuous, but regularly crenated along the outer edge. Hook. Syn. 

 Fil. p. 146 ; Sp. Fil. ii. t. 129 A. 



Tambur Valley, East Nepal. 



Veins not perceptible ; indusium broad, conspicuous. 



4. Pell/ea nitidula. ( Wall, under Pteris.) Caudex short- 

 creeping, stout ; stipes 2-5 inches long, very numerous and crowded, 

 hispid, with subulate deciduous chaffy dark brown scales, and as well 

 as the rachis (which is downy on one side) ebeneous; fronds 3-4 or 

 rarely 5 inches long, subdeltoid-oblong acuminate (sterile ones 

 broader), coriaceous, shining beneath, glabrous, pinnate-pinnatifid, 

 below subbipinnate ; pinna; approximate, nearly opposite, broad- 

 lanceolate dimidiate (the inferior half broadest), deeply pinnatifid 

 nearly to the rachis, lowest pair again subpinnatc and the secondary 

 pinn;e pinnatifid ; lobes all oblong entire or sinuate, gradually coming 

 to a sharp point, the lower base decurrent, the lowest inferior lobes 



