250 Ferns of British India and Ceylon. 
but I have specimens where the pinnae are gradually reduced ; the 
involucre is reniform, or quite circular from the overlapping at 
the sinus. Himalayas, Nepal to Bhotan, 7,500-11,000 feet elevation, 
Bedd. F. B. I. t. 4.o.-—Nidjis. Tufts very circular, fronds small, 
lower pinnae a little reduced and deflexed, segments few, sori 
scattered, but with a tendency to be apical. Sikkim, 9,000-12,000 
feet. Bedd. F. B. I. Snp. t 372. — Clarkei. Tufts circular, fronds 
tapering much at the base, almost down to the caudex ; much 
smaller than the type, but quite running into it. Sikkim, 9,000- 
11,000 feet. Bedd. Fern Sup. t. 371. Colonel Dyas sent this 
from Da^housie with the under surface very fibrillose {vide specimen in 
British Museum). — FibiHUosa differs only in having the under 
surfaces of the pinnae copiously clothed with fibrillae. N. W. Hima- 
layas, 9,000-12,000 feet from Kumaon to West Kashmir. 
Var. y ELONGATA. [Hook and Grev. Ic. t. 234.) Fronds trun- 
cate at the base, bi-tripinnate, or sometimes pinnate only in forms 
from high elevations, ultimate segments generally narrowed upwards 
from abroad base, rachises glabrous or scaly. Hook. Sp. Fil. iv. 117. 
Bedd. F. S. I. 112. Var. marginata, Clarke., plate 71. Aspid. 
Canariense, A. Brown. 
South India on the Western mountains, 4,000-6,000 feet ele- 
vation; Ceylon ; Himalayas and Khasya, 5,000-9,000 feet elevation. 
Aspidium rigidum {Desv.) seems quite to run into this. Asp. 
Schimperianum (^Hochst) [intermedia, Bedd. F. S. I.t. 113], is only 
a form at a higher elevation, 2-pinnate or i-pinnate, with often very 
large sori ; but it quite runs into the type. Nilgiris, higher elevations. 
Himalayas, 7,000-12,000 feet. This can always be distinguished 
from large forms of sparsa by the lower basal pinnules of the lowest 
pinnae not being elongated. 
Var. S cochleata. {Don.) Fronds truncate at the base, 
generally dimorphic, pinnate or sub-bipinnate in the sterile, bipin- 
nate in the fertile ; involucres very large and completely covering the 
under surface of the contracted fertile pinnules, but the broader 
fronds are sometimes partially, or even wholly, in fructification ; 
