Ferns of British India and Ceylon. 229 
creeping ; stipes scattered, 6-12 inches long, slender, slightly scaly 
below ; fronds about i foot long, by 6-9 inches broad, with a pinnate 
apex and 2-6 lateral pinnae on each side, which are i-i^ inch 
broad, all simply pinnated or the lowest sometimes slightly compound 
at the base, pinnules subrhomboidal with the lower side much cut 
away inch long, cut down about a third or half-way to the costa into 
rounded lobes which terminate with a long bristle, sometimes being 
more or less serrated ; texture subcoriaceous ; rachis and both 
surfaces naked ; veins pinnate in the lobes ; sori submarginal ; 
indusium reniform or orbicular. Bedd. F. S. 1. t. 109. Aspidium 
amabile, Bl. En. Pl.Jav. Fil. p. 165. Hook. Syn. Fil. 254. Aspid. 
rhomboideum. Wall. Cat. 364. 
I keep this species in Lastrea as I have always found the 
involucres reniform; they appear, however, to be sometimes orbicular, 
so that the species has equal right to be a Polystichum. 
South India, on the Anamallays, Lower Pulneys, Travancore, 
and Tinnevelly Hills, 3,000-4,000 feet elevation ; Ceylon, central 
provinces ; North India, Nepal,' Jaintea, about 4,000 feet, rare. 
(Also in the Philippines and South China.) 
2. Lastrea aristata. {Sw. under Aspiditun.) Rhizome long, 
creeping, very scaly ; stipes scattered, about i foot long, more or 
less fibrillose, as are the main and partial rachises ; fronds about 
12-15 inches long, deltoid in outline, pinnate at the apex, below 
which are 5-6 lateral pinnae on each side, which, except the lower 
pair, are generally simply pinnate or with a tendency to be bipinnate 
in their upper basal pinnules, lower pair bipinnate towards the base, 
the lower basal pinnules being much the largest and quite pinnated, 
pinnules subrhomboidal with the lower base cut away, more or less 
lobed, the upper basal lobe being the deepest, lobes copiously 
toothed, teeth aristate ; texture more or less coriaceous ; veins 
pinnate in the lobes, the veinlets being simple or forked ; sori apical 
on the veinlets and well within the margin ; indusium reniform or 
orbicular. Bedd. F. S. I. t. 10 1. Aspidium aristatum, Siu. Syn. 
^li' 53' 
