299 
ATHYRIUM. 
= 
ATHYRIUM FIMBRIATUM. (Wall) Caudex? stipes stout darkish-brown glossy, 1 foot and more long, copiously x 
paleaceous, most so towards the base with large glossy tawny Janceolato-subulate scales, frond ample 2-8 feet long ovate or subdeltoid i 
acuminate firm-coriaceous, subpolystichoid, 4 pinnate, primary pinnæ petiolate (as are the secondary and tertiary ones) 6-12 inches long 
distant from a broad base lanceolate much acuminate, secondary ones also distant of the same shape but not acuminate, 1-14 inch long 
numerous, ultimate pinnules ovato-lanceolate, L of an inch long, superior basal موه‎ the largest acute, all pinnatifid with acute lobes, 
auricled at the superior base, terminal ones subconfluent, sori 2-5 on each pinnule broad-oblong or in age almost globose, very prominent 
and copious, involucre brown membranaceous, broad, generally crescent-shaped or subhippocrepiform fimbriated extremely convex, soon 
forced back by sori, rachises all pale-brown, glossy more or less flexuose. Aspidium fimbriatum, Wall. Cat. n. 339 ; not Athyrium 
foliolosum, Moore Ind. Fil. p. 92 ;一 An Aspl. decipiens, Metten. Asplen. p. 195, t. 6. f. 9, 10 ;— Hook. Sp. Fil. iii. 234, 
The specimen figured is from Kumaon, 
It is scarcely distinct from some forms of the common Nilgiri fern which I have figured at Plate CLV. of the Ferns of "٢ 
Southern India as A. pectinatum (Wall.), but which is A. aspididoides (Schlecht) Sir W. Hooker refers the pectinatum of Wall. to A. ٠ 
Filix-fæmina, but some authentic specimens that I have seen of pectinatum are not to be distinguished from our Nilgiri fern ; there are 
several forms of it on the Nilgiris, and the more I study this group I am inclined to think that the different forms of Filix-femina- 
pectinatum or aspidioides and fimbriatum (and perhaps some other species) run so one into the other that it is almost impossible to 
distinguish them satisfactorily and that the only chance of doing it would be by a careful examination of numerous plants growing 
in their natural habitatats, 
PLATE No. CCXCY. 
