266 Ferns of British India and Ceylon. 



45. Lastrea Boryana. {Willi, under Aspidium.) Stipes 2-3 

 feet long, sparingly scaly near the base ; fronds very large, up to 8 feet 

 long by 4 feet broad, herbaceous or almost membranaceous, bipinnate, 

 with the secondary pinnae (3^-6 inches long) pinnatifid down to a very 

 regularly but narrowly winged midrib, pinnules blunt §— f inch long, 

 more or less wide apart at the base, pinnatifid about one-third or half- 

 down into small entire segments ; rachises and both surfaces naked, 

 or with a little mealy pubescence and a few hairs ; veins forked or 

 simple ; sori low down on the veins, in a single row on each side of 

 the pinnules near the midrib, generally very small, large in some 

 Himalayan examples, involucre often much lacerated on the margin, 

 very fugacious. Willi. Sp. PL v. p. 285. Baker, Syn. Fil. 284. 

 Lastrea divisa, Hook. Sp. Fil. iv. 133. Wall. Cat. 393. Beid. F. 

 S. I. t. 97. Polypodium subtripinnatum, Clarke, F. N. I. p. 545, t. 

 80,7%-. 1. 



South India, on the Western mountains, 3,000-7,500 feet 

 elevation ; Ceylon, central provinces ; Himalayas, Gurwhal to 

 Bhotan, 4,000-8,000 feet elevation ; Khasya ; Malay Peninsula. 

 Clarke's variety microstegioides does not recede from the type. 



(Also in Bourbon, Java, and China.) 



46. Lastrea tenericaulis. ( Wallich under Poly podium?) 

 Caudex erect, furnished with numerous fibrous roots, stipes tufted, 

 below a little scaly, above very glaucous, with a blueish bloom, which 

 easily rubs off ; rachis with a line of hairs on the sulcated upper 

 side, glabrous beneath ; fronds 1-3 feet and more long, broad ovate- 

 lanceolate acuminate, membranaceous, bipinnate with the pinnules 

 pinnatifid nearly to the costas, pubescent with long white hairs 

 on the costa and costules on both sides, rachis of the pinnules 

 furnished with a very regular line of dense hairs on the upper side, 

 glabrous and convex below, pinnae rather remote, opposite or alternate, 

 lanceolate acuminate, inferior ones 10-12 inches long by 3 inches 

 broad ; pinnules up to 2 inches long, oblong lanceolate from a broad 

 adnate base (which is decurrent so as to form a winged rachis, parti- 

 cularly in the upper pinnae), pinnatifid (in the lower pinnae almost to the 

 costa); secondary pinnules pinnatifid in the lower pinnae, entire or 



