54 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol.XlI . 
oaudex ; — 5ft. 1., 4 1 — 14in. br., the auricled short pinnae occupying. the lower 
4 — 20in. Jpinn. 15 — 40 and more prirs (including those auricled) according to 
size of frond, narrow, rarely more than fin. broad, not much diminished in 
lower half, above gradually narrowing and ending in a very acuminate apex ; 
cut down ^ to nearly \ way towards the rhachis, increasingly distant and 
becoming more opposite towards the base of the lanceolate portion of the 
ti’ond where they suddenly shorten, become almost exactly opposite and de- 
flexed, and throw out auricles upwards, which lengthen as the pinnae shorten 
and become pinnatifkl lower down, with separate costae ; segm. of pinnae 
curving upwards, broadly falcate, subentire, connected at the sinus by a 
hyaline web which extends towards the rhachis of the ttinna over one or 
even two inter-venal spaces ; texture papyraceous ; surfaces practically glabrous : 
rhachises sometimes slightly villose or pubescent above, and occasionally 
with a , few white hairs or setae on the veins above ; ven. simply 
pinnate — veins 7 — 8 pairs to a segment, If — 3 pairs uniting with those 
of continuous segments : an excurrent veinlet from the lowest pair free or 
sometimes joining only one of the next upper pair, and occasionally also another 
one or two before it reaches the sinus ; veins of the amides branching in the 
shallow lobes, and uniting with those of the contiguous lobes when the 
auricles are more deeply pinnatifid ; son small, medial on the veins, absent from 
the apices; invol. fugacious or shrivelling on top of the ripe sorus. (Plate XII), — 
N. molle, Desv., var, major, Bedd. Suppt. H. B. 76, in part. 
Punjab ; Chamba , McDonell (in list of Chamba Ferns identified at Kew, named 
N. amboinense). Simla Reg. — Simla, 5th Waterfall, Collett 1883, Samala Nala 4500 
Blanf. 1884 (under N pennigcrum , Hook. var. multilineata , Wall.; it “ occurs, together 
with N. molle , at the lowest levels visited below Simla (4500'), and I have it also from 
Mussooree, collected by Mr. C. W. Hope, and from below Chakrata Simla — between 
2nd Waterfall and Boileauganj, Bliss 1890. 
N.-W. P. : B. B.Bist — In the Dun, near Malsi, and in the Song Valley near its exit 
from the Himalaya 26-2800', Hope 1887-89 ; Mussooree — Duthie 1887, below Khiarkuli 
4700,' Hope 1880, Colonel Herschell 1878 or 1879, Mossy Falls. 5500, Hope (with 
Duthie) 1882, below Arnigadh 5000', Duthie 1882: T. Garb ,.— Surkunda Mt. 9300 
Lev. 1872 ; north of Mussooree 3000', Mackinnons 1879 ; near Bhatauli 4500', Hope 
1886 ; Thadiar 3500', Gamble 1894. Kvmaun — S. and W. No. 2 ; Gola Valley : seen 
in 1890 in cultivation at “ Douglas Dale” 4500,' brought from neighbour- 
hood. 
Distrib.*— Asia ; N. Ind. ( Him. j — Nepal, Watlich , 1829. Sikkim — Poobsering 
below Darjeeling 4000', lev. 1880. Ceylon, Thwaites C. P. 2498 (named N. Hookeri') 
and AmbaVala (or Ambawella), G. Wall* “ Indian Archipelago,” Seemann — 
“ R. Brown , iter Austral. 1800-5.” 
J long ago named this species N. papyraceum, but that name has since 
been given by Colonel Beddome, in his Supplement of 1892, to a 
