Ferns of British India and Ceylon. 433 
long, 1 1-2 inches broad, the terminal pinna with blunt rounded lobes 
reaching sometimes i of the way to the rachis, below this usually a 
single pair of small sessile ovate blunt auriculate lateral ones, tex- 
ture thin, herbaceous, veins beneath hairy ; main veins sometimes 
distinct to the edge, at other times hardly distinguishable from the 
other veins, with copious areoles, including free veinlets ; fertile 
fronds with a terminal pinna, 1-2 inches long, |- inch broad, and a 
pair of smaller lateral ones, the stipe slender, 6-9 inches long, naked 
except at the' base. Acrostichum quercifolium. Retz, Obs. Bot. 6, 
39. Hook. Syn. Fil.p. 418. Bedd. F. S. I. t 47. 
Tinnevelly and Travancore Hills, up 
to 2,000 feet elevation, Anamallays ; 
Ceylon, about Colombo. 
7. Gymnopteris flagellifera. 
( Wall.) Rhizome short, terrestrial, or scan- 
dent several feet up trees, strong, densely 
scaly with brown lanceolate scales at the 
extremities, and throwing out rootlets 
encircling the boughs ; stipes often 
densely scaly, fronds simple or 3-foliate 
or pinnate with 5-1 1 pinnae, the terminal 
pinna often much prolonged and rooting 
at the apex ; pinnae stalked entire or re- gymnopteris quercifolia. 
pand, or even lobed, 4-5 inches long by {Rctz.) 
2 inches broad ; main veins very prominent to the margin, areoles 
copious with or without free veinlets ; fertile pinnae more or less con- 
tracted, generally without any free veinlets in the areoles, wholly 
soriferous or partially covered with meniscioid sori ; texture herba- 
ceous, drying a dull brown colour. Wall. Cat. 25. Clarke, F. N. I. 
p. 579. Paecilopteris flagellifera, Bedd. F. B. I. t. 112. 
North India, Sikkim and Assam, Cachar and Chittagong up to 
3,000 feet elevation ; Birma. Some of my Birma specimens have all 
the fronds simple, and are then hardly distinguishable from " varia 
bilis " (type) except by the pecuHar colour and scaly stipe, others have 
29 
