Ferns of British India and Ceylon. 



227 



forming loops near the costa, sometimes very regularly, some- 

 times only occasionally, in the contracted fertile fronds all the veins 

 free ; sori generally apical on the free veinlets ; involucre reniform. 

 Presl. Rd. Hcenck. 36, t. 5, fig. 3. Aspidium fuscipes, Bedd. Sup. 

 Ferns, t. 366. Aspidium fuscipes, Wtillich, partly, but not the type 

 sheet, which is Lastrea sagenioides. 



East Bengal Plains, extending into Assam, Cachar, and Chitta- 

 gong. Khasya and Sikkim hills up to 3,000 feet elevation. Birma 

 and the Malay peninsula. In habit much like small Aspidium cicu- 

 tarium, but venation different, and 

 easily known by the persistent black 

 scales towards the base of the 

 stipe ; in the Synopsis Filicum it 

 has been erroneously lumped with 

 Lastrea dissecta by Hooker and 

 Baker. 



5. Pleocnemia Clarkei. 

 {Bedd.) Stipes and rachis slightly 

 pubescent ; fronds 2-3 feet long, 

 lanceolate, narrowed at the base 

 into distant auricles, softly shortly 

 villous, herbaceous, pinnate ; pinnae 

 numerous, alternate, if-2 inches 

 broad, pinnatifid nearly to the rachis, 

 the pinnules lanceolate from a broad 

 base, irregular as to length, and 

 from subentire to deeply pinnatifid (on the same pinna) acute at 

 the apex, lowest veins forming arcs along the costa of the pinnules 

 from which proceed free veinlets ; veins of the pinnules pinnate, 

 or once or twice forked, the lowest veinlet of a group often looped 

 with the next group ; involucre kidney-shaped, hairy and ciliate. 

 Bedd. Sup. Ferns, t. 368. Nephrodium artinexum, Clarke, F. N. I. 



N<?ll6 

 PLEOCNEMIA CLARKEI. {Bedd.) 



Sikkim ; near Dikeeling, 4,500 feet elevation. 



