67 



ASPLEMEJ3. 



ATHYRIUM. (See " Ferns of Southern India," p. 50.) 



ATHYRIUM OXYPHYLLUM. (Hook.) Caudex very stout 1-2 inches in diameter ascending clothed with numerous 

 persistent stipites of former years villous rather than paleaceous at the summit with very long (f of an inch) erect subflexuose ferrugi- 

 nous scales, stipites clustered 4 inches to a foot long stramineous glossy below shaggy with the same scales as crown the caudex, fronds 

 6-18 inches long from broad-lanceolate to sub-deltoideo-ovate subcoriaceous generally much acuminated bi-rarely tri-pinnate, primary 

 pinna? 3-8 inches in length often flexuose from a broad base lanceolate sometimes spinulose on the costa above generally much acumi- 

 nated and sharply serrated only at the apex, pinnules from an oblique cuneated base tapering into a distinct petiolule ovate-lanceolate 

 acute lobato-pinnatifid at the margin auricled at the superior base serrated towards the apex, the lobes usually acute, sometimes the 

 pinnules are again pinnated, veins pinnated, sori in two rows one on each veinlet near the middle, varying much in size rarely straight 

 mostly curvedT or crescent-shaped, involucres often hippocrepiform brown membranaceous erose or fringed at the margin sometimes 

 deciduous.— Hook. Sp. Fit. iii. 221 ;— Polypodium oxyphyllum, Wall. Cat. p. 324 ;— Athyrium, Moore Ind. Fil. p, 126 ;— Aspidium 

 eburneum, Wall. Cat. p. 389 ;— (pinnce and pinnules more slender), Asplenium, /. Sm. Cat. Cult. Ferns p. 6.—Metten. Asplen. p. 194; 

 — Lastrea, J. Sm. Cat. Cult. Ferns p. 47 ;— Aspidium squamosum, Wall. Cat. n. 356 ;— (Moore refers this to his Athyrium foliolosum). 

 —-Polypodium drepanopterum, Kze. in Linncea. xxiii. p. 318 ;— Aspidium, Braun. Ind. Sem. Berol. 1856. — Metlen Fil. Hort. Lips, 

 p. 93.^. 19./. 1-4. 



The specimen figured is from the Khasya Hills, (Dr. Thomson.) 



Hab. Nepaul, Assam, Khasya, Eastern Himalaya, Bhotan. 



PLATE No. LXVII. 



