254 
LASTREA. 
LAsTREA FAIRBAN KII. (Bedd.) Caudex long creeping as thick as a crow quill very black glabrous, but furnished 
with a few scales, copiously rooting—stipes 8-20 inches long stramienous, black at the base, rachis channelled above glabrous or slightly. 
pubescent with weak glandular hairs, fronds coriaceous 6-10 inches or more long narrow oblong pinnated, pinns opposite or alternate, 
sessile or nearly 80, 1—14 inches long, less than 4 an inch broad, linear obtuse or acuminate at the apex, pinnatifid nearly to the rachis, 
` the lower ones reduced in size and often more distant, rachis channelled and glabrous on the upper side, slightly pubescent or glabrous 
beneath and there furnished with numerous broad-ovate or lunate very transparent scales, segments oblong to ovate entire much recurved 
at the margins, veins more or less undulate, veinlets all simple not forked excurrent at the margin, sori one on the centre of each veinlet, 
involucre reniform, fimbriate at the margin. 
I have named this species after Mr. Fairbank of the American Mission, who first pointed it out to me on the Pulney Mountains, 
where it seems to be very rare (and it has been not found elsewhere though it probably occurs on the Anamallays and Nilgiris), it is 
nearly allied to L. Thelypteris, and I am not sure that it is not a variety of that species, the texture however is very coriaceous, and if a 
- variety of Thelypteris, it is very distinct from any of the European or Himalayan forms in my Herbarium. 
Hab. Puluey Mountains—4000 feet and upwards—(in Swamps.) 
PLATE No. CCLIY.. 
