296 Ferns of British India and Ceylon. 
nearly naked ; fronds very large, 3 feet or more long, broad lanceolate 
to deltoid, 3-4 pinnate, the rachis furfuraceous, pinnae 8-10 inches 
long, often with clusters of viviparous buds in their axil?, secondary 
pinnse petiolate about 2 inches long; tertiary pinnae petiolate |-| inch 
long, pinnatifid, and generally pinnate at the base, the lower lobes 
incised, the upper ones generally entire, texture thin membranaceous, 
drying quite green, glabrous; veinlets forked or simple, pellucid, termin- 
ating well within the margin and clavate at the apex ; sori small below 
the apex of the veinlet. Polypodium subdigitatum, Bl. Fl. Jav. 
Fil. 196. /. 93. Bedd. F. B. I. t. 229. Hook. Sy?t. Fit. p. 340. 
Phegopteris davallioides (Mett.), Hook. Sp. Fil. iv. 256. Polypodium 
coniifolium. Wall. Cat. 326. 
Himalayas, from Nepal to Bhotan, 6,000-9,000 feet elevation, 
common ; Malay Peninsula. 
(Also in the Malay Islands.) 
GENUS. LVIIL— GONIOPTERIS. {Presl.) 
{Gonia^ angle ; pteris^ fern — the veinlets meeting and forming angles.) 
Habit and venation of Nephrodium, i.e.., veins pinnate, the 
lowest or several pairs of veinlets of contiguous groups anastomosing 
at an angle from which proceeds an excurrent veinlet ; stipes con- 
tinuous with the rhizome ; fronds pinnate, in fact, all the characters 
as in Nephrodium, except that there is no indusium to the sorus. 
All the supposed Indian species except the following have been 
proved to possess an indusium in a young stage or under certain 
conditions, so that they have been transferred to Nephrodium, the 
following species deviates somewhat from the habit of Nephrodium 
in its elongated proliferous non-seeding fronds, and in being often 
copiously branched from the axils, the sori are often those of Menis- 
cium rather than Goniopteris. 
I. Goniopteris prolifera. {Roxb.) Rhizome stout, wide- 
creeping ; fronds 1-2 feet long, pinnate, often flagelHform and 
much elongated but then non-seeding, with pinnae more or less 
dwarfed and rooting from the apex or some of its axils, often also 
