THE FERNS OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA, 
Including Afghanistan, the Trans-Indus Protected States, and Kashmir : 
arranged and named on the basis of Hooker and Baker’s Synopsis Filicum , 
and other works, with new Species added. 
By C. W. Hope. 
(Bead before the Bombay Natural History Society, on 28th of Feb., 1899.) 
PART I.— INTRODUCTORY. 
The object of this paper is to bring into one view tlio information 
regarding the ferns of the North-West Indian region which is to be 
found in the standard English works on ferns, and to add to that the 
results of my own observation and study, acquired during a long 
residence in India and since I left that country. 
I have limited my review to the regions named in the title, because 
my observations and study have been chiefly so limited. 
Collections were made by me in parts of Kumaon in 1801, and 
again in 1890 ; in the Dehra Dun district— at various levels — at inter- 
vals from 1879 to 189-5 ; in Simla in 1871, and again there and along 
the Thibet Road eastward for some 50 miles in 1886. The late 
Mr. H. C. Levinge began the study of ferns after seeing what 
I collected at Simla in 1871 ; and he collected diligently at Darjeeling 
and in other parts of Sikkim, in Bengal, and also in Kashmir and parts 
of the North-West Himalaya, until he left India in 1883, and he never 
failed to give me a share of what he got, even when I had nothing to give 
him in exchange. Mr. C. B. Clarke also has several times given me 
generous contributions of ferns collected in Sikkim, Assam, and other 
parts of India. And Mr. Gustav Mann, whose fame as a botanist and 
collector has been so often signalised by plants being named after him, 
has given me in exchange to North-West Indian ferns about 150 species 
collected by himself in Assam, where he was ^Conservator of Forests for 
many years. Since the year 1881 I have from time to time seen and 
examined all the ferns collected in the North-Western Himalaya, 
Kashmir, and the Trans-Indus Protected States by Mr. J. F. Duthie, 
the Director of the Botanical Department, Northern India, and his 
collectors, and have generally shared in the distribution made by him ; 
and 1 have several times studied the ferns in the her barium at Saharan - 
pur, which, under Mr. Duthie’s charge, have increased from one small 
bundle to a very considerable collection, Since the year .1880 the 
