Ferns of British India and Ceylon. 
67 
nearly or quite to the rachis into blunt slightly crenated oblong lobes, 
rachis and both surfaces slightly hairy, the upper bright green, shining ; 
texture subcoriaceous ; sori small submarginal, 2-12 to a segment. 
Hook. Syn. Fil. p 99. Microlepia proxima (Thw.),^d'</^/. F. S. I. t. 254. 
Ceylon, Rangbodde, 3,500 feet elevation. 
8. MiCROLEPiA STRiGOSA. {Swartz.) Fronds tall, lanceolate, bi- 
pinnate ; stipes elongated ; rachis and veins pubescent-hispid, primary 
pinnae petiolate, lanceolate acuminate, secondary (or pinnules) mostly 
petiolate, subdimidiate-ovate, obtuse pinnatifid, chiefly on the upper 
edge, lower lobes obovate deep, the rest short, all of them angulate- 
dentate, veins pinnated, furnished with a few long scattered hairs both 
above and beneath (the remaining surface of the frond beneath being 
sometimes furnished with numerous small hairs, or sometimes gla- 
brous as is the upper surface) ; involucres hairy, small, half cup-shaped. 
Hook, Syn. Fil. p. 98. Bedd. F. S. I. t. 255, 
Tinnevelly and Travancore Mountains, South India ; Ceylon ; 
Himalayas j and Malay Peninsula. 
(Also in Japan, South China, Sandwich and Fiji Islands.) 
Mr, Clarke considers this a variety, or rather only a young state 
of speluncse, as he states it develops into this more compound 
form ; as far as the South Indian and Ceylon forms are concerned, 
this is never more than bipinnate, whereas speluncoe is 3-4 pin- 
nate ; it has been for years in cultivation in ferneries, at Ootaca- 
mund, and is quite constant. 
9. MiCROLEPiA SPELUNC^. {Liiiii) Rhizome creeping; stipes 
strong, \-\ \ foot long; fronds up to 6 feet long, rarely more, and 
2 feet broad, ovate to deltoid, 3-4-pinnatifid, more or less 
hairy, strigose or villous, or with few or many long glistening scale- 
like flaccid hairs, rarely sub-glabrous; texture membranaceous, or 
flaccid, pinnules from oblong or ovate to linear-lanceolate, ultimate 
segments entire or subentire and rhomboid, or irregularly inciso- 
obate or pinnatifid ; sori large 1-5 to the entire segments, more 
copious on the lobed segments ; involucre half cup-shaped, hispid or 
rarely glabrous; veins more or less prominent beneath. Polypodium 
speluncae, Lin. Sp. Fl. 1555. 
