40 JOURNAL , BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY , FoZ. A77. 
It is improbable that Mr. Blanford, at the time the remarks above extracted 
were written, had ever seen a specimen of the N.-E. Indian N. prolixum with 
a rhizome attached ; and I conclude that, though nothing was said in the 
“ Synopsis ” about the rhizome, he believed with Mr. Clarke that the caudex 
was erect and the stipes tufted, and yet held that the Simla fern, with a caudex 
decumbent or shortly creeping, and with other differences, varied only slightly 
from N. prolixum. He does not say that it grows in isolated plants, with 
decumbent or shortly creeping caudices, and stipes in a tuft ; and I am 
confident that had he carried his investigation farther he would have found the 
widely creeping and branching rhizome of N. repens throwing up fronds at 
intervals, and forming a more or less extensive bed. 
N. longicuspe , Baker, from Madagascar, seems to be N. repens , but the 
rhizome is wanting. The West African specimen cited above is, or was, in the 
Nephrodium molle bundle at Kew. The largest frond of N. repens I have is 4 ft. 
long, including the auricled base, by 10 in. br.; but a specimen in Mr. Gamble’s 
collection, his No. 17824, from Sikkim I think, mounted on three sheets, is 
6 ft. 1. by 1£ ft. br., 2 ft. of that length being merely auricled, the 
auricles not papilionate ; the stipe is wanting. The fern is probably rare in 
Eastern India : Clarke’s No. 44652, from Shillong, is perhaps the only 
representative from Assam. I have seen a few specimens of a plant, with 
glands at base of pinnae and papilionate auricles on the stipe, from Sikkim and 
the Madras Presidency, which have portions of an erect caudex, and these I 
think ought to be called N. ochtliodes , Kze. (under Aspidium). Beddome’s 
figure in F.S.I., t. 106, seems to be a representative of this last-mentioned plant, 
and it shows the papilionate auricles, though only two pairs of them. N. repens 
loves moisture, and grows by the sides of water-courses and on swampy ground 
below springs. 
( To le continued . ) 
