THE FERNS OF NORTH- WESTERN INDIA. 
105 
This next variety Clarke calls intermedia , and describes thus ; — 
‘'Frond lax, more coarsely cut, involucres often inch— 0. lucidumt 
Bedd., Ferns Brit. Ind., t. 21.” 
A specimen, got by Strachey and Winterbottom in Kumaun, at 7500' alt-, 
marked by Clarke as var. intermedia , and a few others so marked — among 
them one got in Sikkim — Lachen 9-10,000', by J. D. Hooker— are, for me, 
typical multisectum. Mr. Clarke says — <£ This form, exactly figured by Colonel 
Beddome, seems half-way between O. japonicum , Kze., and O. multisectum , 
F. Henderson. And he adds — ■“ After going through the Kew material with 
me, F. Henderson would still prefer to make O. multisectum a species.” After 
reading this, Beddome, in his Handbook, said that his t. 21 was taken from 
multisectum , and that the two varieties of O . japonicum differ very slightly, if 
at all. A. variety which, its author says, is exactly figured by another author, 
but which that other author says he figured from a specimen of another variety, 
may safely be said to be non-existent. I have collected specimens of O. multi- 
sect urn from uncongenial localities, comparatively small and narrow, and even 
with brown instead of straw-coloured involucres, but I have attributed their 
differences from the full-sized plant grown in good soil solely to circumstances. 
There is really no passage from multisectum to japonicum , and if there were, I 
should prefer to make the latter a variety of the former, because— in the North- 
West Himalaya at least — it is much the rarer. That 0. multisectum has been 
the later recognised plant is no reason for holding that it is a variety of 
0. japonicum . Clarke and Baker may be right in saying, in their joint paper 
of 1888, that the rhizomes of the two ferns are altogether the same ; 
but I think that the fronds of 0 . multisectum generally spring up closer 
together than those of O. japonicum do, as they often form dense bushes, 
or even beds, — as in Simla, where this fern carpets the ground under the 
Deodars, and even in the open. I have a tuft, from Tehri Garliwal, collected 
by Duthie, with 5 or 6 fronds in a mass, mounted on one sheet. And it is 
generally impossible to spread out even a single frond, in pressing it, so that all 
the pinnae shall be separate and distinct. 0 . japonicum , in N.-W. India, is a 
shy, solitary plant : (A multisectum is bold and gregarious. In one of the few 
stations for it I b ye seen in Mussooree 0. japonicum was growing inside a 
thorny bush ; and Major MacLeod Writes that in the Ramganga Valley, 
Kumaun, it grows in dense grassy undergrowth. Barren fronds are, perhaps, 
the more numerous, but I do not think there is any dimorphism. Nor do 
I find any dimorphism in 0. multisectum , though Clarke begins his description 
with — “ Fertile frond very finely cut.” 
Clarke says of 0. multisectum — “ Ripe capsules not numerous.” I should 
say that the capsules generally ripen, and that most fertile fronds are very 
