296 Ferns of British India and Ceylon. 



nearly naked ; fronds very large, 3 feet or more long, broad lanceolate 

 to deltoid, 3-4 pinnate, the rachis furfuraceous, pinnae 8-10 inches 

 long, often with clusters of viviparous buds in their axil?, secondary 

 pinnse petiolate about 2 inches long; tertiary pinnae petiolate f— | inch 

 long, pinnatifid, and generally pinnate at the base, the lower lobes 

 incised, the upper ones generally entire, texture thin membranaceous, 

 drying quite green, glabrous; veinlets forked or simple, pellucid, termin- 

 ating well within the margin and clavate at the apex ; sori small below 

 the apex of the veinlet. Polypodium subdigitatum, Bl. Fl. Jav. 

 Fil. 196. /. 93. Bedd. F. B. I. t. 229. Hook. Syn. Fil. p. 340. 

 Phegopteris davallioides (Mett.), Hook. Sp. Fil. iv. 256. Polypodium 

 coniifolium, Wall. Cat. 326. 



Himalayas, from Nepal to Bhotan, 6,000-9,000 feet elevation, 

 common ; Malay Peninsula. 



(Also in the Malay Islands.) 



GENUS. LVIIL— GONIOPTERIS. (Brest.) 

 {Gonia, angle ; fiteris, fern — the veinlets meeting and forming angles.) 



Habit and venation of Nephrodium, I.e., veins pinnate, the 

 lowest or several pairs of veinlets of contiguous groups anastomosing 

 at an angle from which proceeds an excurrent veinlet ; stipes con- 

 tinuous with the rhizome ; fronds pinnate, in fact, all the characters 

 as in Nephrodium, except that there is no indusium to the sorus. 



All the supposed Indian species except the following have been 

 proved to possess an indusium in a young stage or under certain 

 conditions, so that they have been transferred to Nephrodium, the 

 following species deviates somewhat from the habit of Nephrodium 

 in its elongated proliferous non-seeding fronds, and in being often 

 copiously branched from the axils, the sori are often those of Menis- 

 cium rather than Goniopteris. 



1. Goniopteris prolifera. (Roxb.) Rhizome stout, wide- 

 creeping ; fronds 1-2 feet long, pinnate, often flagelliform and 

 much elongated but then non-seeding, with pinnae more or less 

 dwarfed and rooting from the apex or some of its axils, often also 



