144 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIII. 
Panjab : Chamba .— Ravi Valley, Chadbent Forest 6,000', McDouell, 1882. 
Distrib . — Asia : Japan — Yezo Prov., VA bid Fanrie , 1889. 
Colonel Beddome described this species in 1889 from two fronds, then shown 
to him by Mr. McDonell and myself. Mr. McDonell’s frond had a bit of 
rhizome attached : mine had only an incomplete stipe. He (Mr. McDonell) 
had sent it to me several years before as A. thelypteroides , but I then noted 
that it was different and probably new. A third frond of tbe same gathering 
in Chamba I found, in 1896, in the Calcutta Herbarium. These were the only 
three fronds Mr. McDonell had up to that time got. After returning tb India 
he was dtputed to Kashmir, to have charge of the Forest Department of that 
State ; and in 1891 he found A. McDmelli plentiful in several localities there 
(W. and S. Kashmir, I think) ; and it seems probable that this fern has its 
headquarters in Kashmir, and that tbe Chamba station is an outlier. 
Mr. McDonell has explored Chamba thoroughly, and he is so sharp an 
observer that any other station there could hardly have escaped him. But, 
very curiously, tbe only specimen sent to Kew, as this fern, by its discoverer is, 
for me, A. thelypteroides. Mr. J. Marten, who has, more lately, been exploring 
in Chamba, does not seem to have found it. 
The place of this species is clearly alongside of A . thelypteroides , and not 
woere Colonel Beddome has placed it — after the A . ni gripes group. The 
sterile fronds of young plants are hardly distinguishable in the herbarium, 
from similar fronds of A. thelypteroides , the cutting being sometimes almost 
identical. The main points of difference are : — (1) the rhizome, which is 
distinctly, though sometimes slowly, creeping in A. McDonelli , and erector 
only procumbent in the other species (but see the suggestion at end of the 
last article) ; (2) the wider sinus between the segments or pinnule^ which in 
A. McDonelli extends nearer to the rhachis, and in well-developed specimens is 
square or often ob-cuneate at the base ; (3) in A. thelypteroides , the frond 
narrows gradually at the base ; in A. McDonelli , it is truncate, the lowest pair 
of pinnae being hardly shorter than those above ; (4) the shape of the pinnise, 
which in A. thelypteroides is invariable (though hardly so wide as 1 in., as the 
Synopsis Filicum has it), but in A. McDonelli varies with the size and age of 
the plant : — In one large specimen from MacLeod, I find the lowest three 
pairs to be pronouncedly lanceolate, and of the following dimensions lowest 
7 1 in. 1., 2-f. br. ; next pair above — 8| in. 1., 2 in. hr. ; third pair-— 8| in. 1., 
1J in. br. — the pinnules or segments being themselves cut down half-way to 
the costa ; (5) in A. thelypteroides , the pinnae are patent : in A. McDonelli in 
large specimens acutely ascendant, the lowest less so. (6) the venation of the 
two species is quite different : in A, thelypteroides it is simple ; in A. McDonelli 
it is sub-pinnate, the vein forks, and one branch throws off one or even two 
