372 
Ferns of British India and Ceylon. 
creeping, clothed with bright ferruginous hair-Uke scales ; stipes a 
span to I foot and more long; fronds i-il foot long, submembra- 
naceous, sometimes pubescent or even subtomentose, glabrous sub- 
coriaceous in age, pinnated, pinnse almost invariably opposite, sessile 
in distant pairs 5-8-9 inches long, by 1^-2 inches broad from an 
obtuse base, elliptical-oblong, finely and long-caudately acuminated 
entire, but with a very distinct membranous hyaline margin ; main 
veins manifest, connected by transverse ones forming areoles, 0/ 
which one or all are soriferous, these areoles are filled up with a net- 
work of lesser areoles which 
have free included veinlets ; 
sori often large, 1-2 in the 
primary areoles, hence they 
are 1-2 serial between the 
main veins, and 3-4 serial in 
a direction parallel with the 
costa. Hook. Sp. Fil. v. 91. 
Bedd. F. B. I.t Poly- 
podium venustum. Wall. Cat. 
305, not of Desv. 
Himalayas, 6,000-10,000 
feet elevation, from Nepal 
to Bhotan, Khasya Hills 
(Jerdon), young plants often 
have simple or 3-lobed fronds. 
Mettenius considers it only 
a variety of Lehmanni. Mr. 
Clarke calls the tomentose 
variety, var. niphoboloides, but it graduates into the type. 
N?2I2 
I'LEOPELTIS PlIMALAYENSIS. {Hook.) 
35. Pleopeltis leiorhiza. {Wall.) Rhizome very thick, 
fleshy, wide-creeping, covered with ovate adpressed peltate, slaty-brown 
scales ; stipes 1-2 feet long, erect ; fronds 2-4 feet long, 1-2 feet 
broad ; pinnae narrow lanceolate-linear coriaceous acuminate at the 
apex, margins entire, sessile and rather decurrent at the base, or 
