68 
Ferns of British India and Ceylon. 
The Himalayas from Kumaon eastwards ; Khasya ; Chittagong ; 
Madras, Western mountains Ceylon ; Malay Peninsula. 
(Also in China, Japan, Malay Islands, Polynesia, and Tropical 
America.) 
Type. Ultimate segments rhomboidal, subentire, or slightly 
crenated. Davallia rhomboidea. Wail. Cat. 257. 
Var. /3 HiRTA. Ultimate segments more or less deeply cut. 
Rhomboidea (Microlepia polypodioides, Bedd. F. S. I. t. 1^) 
can easily be picked out in the herbarium : it is very uniform in char- 
acter, and does not run into hirta in cultivation ; it is very common 
throughout India and in Ceylon. 
The variety hirta {Bedd. 7^ 6". / 256) is a much more variable 
plant, and I refer to this Wall. Cat. 262 puberula; 263 pilosula ; 264 
virens ; 2,218 Roxburghii, and 261 pyramidata. These are all so 
closely allied that it is impossible to keep them up as separate 
varieties, and they besides run one into the other. There are two 
varieties in Southern India and Ceylon : one very hairy and the other 
nearly quite glabrous, but differing in no way beyond the pubescence. 
The supposed species, flaccida (Bedd. F. Sup. t. 353) I now consider 
only a form of hirta, as I cannot distinguish it in the herbarium, it 
is said to be very flaccid, and to have fronds ten and twelve feet long. 
I have seen no forms anything like so large in Southern India or 
Ceylon, yet some Ceylon and South Indian specimens are referred to 
it. Wallich's pyramidata has the pinnules closer together and more 
elongated than any of the other forms, but otherwise it is quite like 
hirta. 
GENUS XIX.— STENOLOMA. {Fee) 
{Stems, narrow; loma, border.) 
Fronds bi-tripinnatifid, ultimate segments cuneiform, growing 
gradually wider from the base to the apex; veins dichotomously 
forked, venules free ; indusium terminal on the segments, forming a 
compressed suborbicular, or cup-shaped pouch, only open at the top ; 
rhizome creeping ; stipes tufted, not articulated upon the rhizome. 
