JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL. 



Vol. LXV. Part II.— NATURAL SCIENCE. 



No. II.— 1896. 



Noviciae Indicae XI. — Two additional species of Lagotis. — By D. Prain. 



Plates I and II. 

 [Received and read, 1st April.] 



Lagotis is the only Indian genus of the natural order Selaginese. 

 It is almost purely alpine in Indian territory ; only two of the truly 

 Himalayan forms (L. glauca var. siJckimensis and L. spectabilis) come as 

 low down as 11,000 feet. A species that extends from Armenia to 

 Afghanistan, but that has not yet been collected within the British 

 border though it has been found in Waziristan just beyond it, comes as 

 low down as 6,000 feet ; most of the Himalayan forms, however, occur 

 at from ] 5,000—18,000 feet elevation. 



The forms that have been recognised as distinct by different writers 

 have varied considerably in number and extent. This is owing to the 

 difficulty of finding characters that are constant either in the flowers or 

 in the leaves and stems. To such an extent does this variability go that 

 in 1881, Mr. Maximowicz [Bull. Ac. Petersb. xxvii. 522 et seq.~] published 

 a reyiew of the genus in which, while he tentatively recognised five 

 more or less distinct forms, he expressed the opinion that probably 

 future taxonomists would be constrained to reduce the number of 

 legitimate species to two only. 

 J. ii. 8 



JJtrtv 



