Ferns of British India and Ceylon. 207 
Var. j3. GRACILIS. Fronds smaller, (3-5 inches long with 
the stipe by i-f inch broad), margin of pinnae crenate, with a sudden 
acumination (not bristly serrate), involucre reniform. Clarke^ F. N. /. 
/. 508. Lastrea gracilis (Moore), Bedd. F. B. I. t. 198. Lastrea 
sparsa, var. gracilis. Hook. Syn. Fil. 498. 
Sikkim, 11,500 feet elevation. Avery doubtful species, which 
Mr. Clarke considers only a variety of Thomsoni, so I place it here 
pending further material. Mr. Clarke says that the involucre is 
polystichoid. 
8. POLYSTICHUM ACULEATUM. {Sw^j StipCS tuftcd, 6-12 
inches long, scaly and fibrillose below or throughout ; fronds large, 
ovate-lanceolate, bipinnate, coriaceous, not attenuated at the base 
(or only slightly so in some forms) ; pinn^ numerous close lanceolate, 
pinnules oblong, unequal at the base, lower margin excised, upper 
generally more or less auricled, margins bristly or spinulose ; texture 
more or less coriaceous, under surface generally fibrillose ; veins 
pinnate or forked in the segments of the pinnules ; sori towards the 
apex or at the apex of the lower veinlets. Sw, Schrad. yourn, ii. 
37. Hook. Syn. Fil. p. 252. 
Throughout the Indian region on the mountains. 
(Also throughout the whole world.) 
Var. j3 LOBATUM. {Eng. hot. t. 1563.) Fronds narrowly 
lanceolate j pinnae hardly pinnate, the lower secondary pinna sessile, 
or decurrent. Clarke., F. JV. I. p. ^o^. 
Throughout the Himalayas. 
Var. y. RUFO-BARBATUM* (Wall. Cat. 369.) Fronds bipinnate, 
very coriaceous, usually reddish ; stipes densely clothed with large 
red scales ; rachis with red fibrillse ; pinnules naked and fibrillose 
beneath, in cutting like ilicifolium. P. aculeatum, Bedd. F. S. I. t. 
121. Polyst. brachypterum, Kunze, No. 906. 
Nilgiris and Western mountains of South India ; Himalayas, 
from Kashmir to Bhotan. 
Var. 3. ANGULARE. {Presl. Neivm. 173.) Lax and of thinner 
