Ferns of British India and Ceylon. 267 
with the apex crenated in the upper portion of the frond ; veins 
in the larger ultimate segments pinnate with veinlets simple, in the 
smaller segments veinlets once -forked only, all terminating a little 
within the margin ; sori medial or terminal on the veinlets, 1-6 to 
each ultimate segment, involucre very deciduous. Polypodium tene- 
ricaule. Wall. Cat. 335. Lastrea flaccida, Bedd. F. S. I. t. 90. 
Polyp. Russellianum, Wall. Cat. 7077. Lastrea setigera, Baker., Syn. 
Fil. 284, ill pai^t. 
Hooker's and Baker's descriptions of tenericaulis and setigera 
are made to include Phegopteris ornata, a very different fern. I 
have never been able to detect an indusium even in the youngest 
stage of our South Indian plant, and I should follow Wallich and 
include it in Phegopteris, only Mr. Clarke says it is present in the 
Bengal examples. 
South India, on the Western mountains, 2,000-3,000 feet 
elevation, very common; Ceylon, 1,500-3,000 feet; North India, 
Himalays from no great elevation up to 4,000 feet ; Malay 
Peninsula. 
(A-lso in China, Australia, and Polynesia.) 
GENUS LIV.— NEPHRODIUM. {ScJwtt.) 
(From 7ieph7^os^ a kidney ; shape of indusium.) 
Sori subglobose, dorsal on the veins ; (often athyrioid in otaria) 
indusium reniform, sometimes wanting ; veins pinnate, one or more 
pair anastomosing angularly with an excurrent veinlet from their 
junction which is either free or joined in the angle of the next 
superior pair ; fronds always simply pinnate with pinnatifid pinnae in 
the Indian species (rarely simple in species not Indian) ; caudex 
erect or creeping. Most of the supposed species of Goniopteris fall 
in here, as an indusium is often present in the very young stage 
though sometimes entirely absent. 
I. Nephrodium Otaria. {Kze) Rhizome creeping, stipes 6-1 2 
inches long, pale-coloured; fronds 12-15 inches long, pinnate, lateral 
