26 JOURNAL , BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY , FoZ. XI7. 
stumps remaining of stipes representing fronds larger than any then existing. 
Probably the longer fronds get broken off by the wind, or cropped by cattle 
or goats, during the rainy season. Blanford had been calling the plant 
A. Schimperi , A. Br., narrow form ; but when I collected it in 1886 I 
thought it distinct and new, and proposed to call it A. rupestre. On going 
to Kew in 1888 I found a specimen collected by Edgeworth, and named by him 
A . rupicola. Meanwhile, Mr. Blanford seems to have entered the fern in his 
list of the Ferns of Simla (Journ. Asiat. Soc., Beng. 1888) as A. Filix-fcemina , 
var. return, Beene., subvar. elongata , Clarke, from sheets at Kew so marked by 
Clarke. This subvariation is too metaphysical for me, and, as the plant is 
unlike A. Filix-fosmina in every respect, I give it as a species, and adopt 
Edgeworth’s name as being very appropriate. I disagree with Beddome when he 
says that the fronds are very similar to those of A. Schimperi , A. Br., but almost 
always only bipin natifid. A. rupicola is very gradually narrowed towards the 
base, whereas A. Schimperi is hardly narrowed at all ; and I have never 
seen the first-named species with fronds even nearly biphmate ; but probably 
Beddome, as Clarke does, includes in the variety return of A . Filix-famma 
other plants which I do not know. In the Calcutta Herbarium I found, and 
separated, a good many specimens of A. rupicola, but I omitted to note par- 
ticulars regarding them. 
Genus 22 — ASPIDIUM, Siv. (in part). R. Br. 
Subgenus— P olystichum, Roth. 
8. Aspidinra DntMei, n. sp.— Plants with erect caudices in dense 
tufts ; st. short, stout, 1—2 in. long, densely clothed with large pale-drab, 
almost straw-coloured, scales, which extend up the rhachis to the apex of the 
frond, diminishing in size upward, and along the costse on both surfaces, under- 
neath protruding from among the son ; fr. 2—4, 5 in. 1., narrow , linear, 
simply pinnate ; pinn. short, blunt, hardly auricled, broadened at base on both 
sides, merely lobed or crenate above, markedly alternate ; upper surface covered 
with small white glands or setae ; texture subcoriaceous ; son about 4 pairs to 
a pinna near the costa. (Plate YI.) 
N.-W. P. : T. Garh .— Dudu Glacier 14-15,000', Duthie No. 396, 19-8-88; Kufcti 
Valley, above Napalcha, 18,800', Duthie No. 8708 (in part) ; Kumaun — Lebong Pass 
16-17,000', Duthie No. 62S4, 1886. 
Nepal, West— N ampa G&dh 13-14,000', Duthie No. 6288, 1886. 
I have felt obliged to separate this plant from A. lachenmse 9 Hook., both 
because it differs from that plant in appearance, and because Hooker’s description 
of A. lachcnmse cannot be made to cover it. Nor is that description correct for 
even the type plant, especially as to the cutting of the pinn®, which can hardly 
