Ferns of British India and Ceylon, 57 



To-12 inches long ; frond about 1 foot long, and nearly as broad 

 at the base, deltoid, bipinnate ; pinnae erecto-patent ; rachis and 

 partial rachis channelled above ; pinnules subentire, or with a 

 few shallow falcate sharply-serrated lobes, and with hook-like 

 serratures at the apex ; veins pinnate or forked, not reaching the 

 margin ; sori medial on the veinlets. Lastrea subtriangularis, 

 Hope, Jour. Bot. Nov. 1890. ? Nephrodium erythrosorum, Hook. 

 Syn. Bil. 273, since referred to Filix-mas by Mr. Baker. 



Jaintea Hills, 3,000 feet alt. ; Assam. (Mann.) Mr. Hope 

 also gives the locality of Lankot, 800 feet alt., southern face of 

 Khasia Hills. A deltoid form of filix-mas near Moore's 

 odontoloma, it has quite the habit of the Ceylon sparsa var. 

 deltoidea, but is more coriaceous, with the pinnules less cut. 

 Aspidium nitidulum, Wall. Cat. 392, type sheet in the Linncean 

 Herb, seems rather to belong here than to sparsa. Some of the 

 North Indian varieties of the very variable L. sparsa var. 

 obtusissima are very p'izzling, and might as well be referred to 

 Filix-mas as to sparsa. Mr. Clarke felt the same difficulty, vide 

 his remarks at page 95 Jour. Linn. Soc. vol. xxv. In the Kew 

 Herbarium there is a frond of this (exactly agreeing with Mann's 

 specimens) collected by Griffith in Assam ; it is pasted down on 

 the same sheet with a frond of typical sparsa collected elsewhere. 

 erythrosora of the Kew Herbarium is very variable if all the spe- 

 cimens belong to the same species ; some seem certainly to belong 

 here, others agree with the Nilgiri form of odontoloma, whilst 

 others nearly agree with varia. They are all from Japan and 

 China, and are probably all forms of Filix-mas. 



Var. assamexsis. Basal scales like those of subtriangularis ; 

 fronds very similar to Moore's odontoloma, only narrow lan- 

 ceolate, the lower pinme diminishing considerably ; the pinnules 

 or segments (the frond being often only bipinnatifid) parallelo- 

 grammoid, scarcely ever lobed, but with a few sharp teeth on the 

 lateral margins, the square apex furnished with sharp teeth ; 

 veins forked from the midrib of segments, not reaching the 



