Ferns of British India and Ceylon. 445 



prominent, furcate, free or anastomosing, veinlets copiously anasto- 

 mosing, forming large oblong areoles, usually with free included 

 simple or forked veinlets ; fronds dimorphous, the sterile sessile, 

 oblique, reniform, round or elongated, the fertile dichotomously 

 forked with stag-horn-like divisions, in texture and pubescence 

 resembling Niphobolus ; articulate with the candex. 



1. Platyceritjm grande. (J. Sm.) Barren fronds very large, 

 suborbicular, convex or the upper ones erect, deeply laciniated with 

 spreading or inflexed divisions ; fertile fronds 4-6 feet long, pendent 

 in pairs, the disk broad-cuneate, with the sorus against the upper 

 edge, occupying the disk only, with an elongated dichotomously 

 forked division beyond it at each corner ; both surfaces green and 

 smooth. Jf. Sm. in Hook. Journ. Bot.m.p. 402. Hook. Sy 11. 

 Fil. p. 425. Bedd. F. B. I. t. 326. There is only one soriferous 

 patch to each frond. 



Singapore. 



(Also in Philippines and North Australia.) 



2. Platyceritjm Wallichii. (Hook.) Fronds ample, bifari- 

 ous, at length glabrous ; sterile ones imbricated below, irregularly 

 sinuate-lobate, above elongated, dilated deeply and much dichoto- 

 mously pinnatifid, segments patent-inflexed ; fertile fronds geminate, 

 very broadly flabellate-cuneate, twice dichotomous suddenly narrowed 

 at the base, each primary division or segment bears a sorus on the 

 disk (hence there are two sori on each frond), which is semicircular 

 and very much produced in the sinus itself, the terminal segments 

 beyond the soriferous disk are several times dichotomous and pendent, 

 primary veins dicholomous, parallel elevated here and there, anasto- 

 mosing into broad elongated areoles which are occupied by lesser 

 ones with numerous free-branched included veinlets. Hook. Sft. Fil. 

 v. 284. Acrostichum alcicorne, Wall. Cat. n. 19, {not Linn.) 

 Bedd. F. B. I. t. 108. 



Malay Peninsula, Tenasserim. 



3. Platyceritjm biforme. (///.) Fronds ample, bifarious, at 



