ITS JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIV % 
I noted this fern as being new to me in Mr. Trotter’s collection made in 
Kumaun in 1891, and brought by him then to Mnssooree, and soon after- 
wards I received a specimen from Kashmir, collected by Mr. McDonell, as 
it turned out, six days before Mr. Trotter got his specimen, and, though they 
somewhat differed, I referred them to the same species. I described and 
named the plant as A. Trotteri, under the impression that Mr. Trotter was 
the first to gather it : there was already an A. Mcbonelli , Bedd., and Mr. 
Trotter well deserved the compliment. I sent the description to a London 
botanical periodical for publication, but it never appeared. As will be seen, 
however, from the entry above, under the habitat “ Kumaun ”, both Trotter 
and McDonell must yield place as discoverers to Strachey and Winterbottom, 
who found the fern in 1848, at what is probably almost exactly Trotter’s 
station, there being only a difference in the spelling of the vernacular name 
and an estimated difference of only 800 feet in the altitude. As Mr. Trotter 
was always very particular about the spelling of the names of localities, I 
think it probable that Strachey and Winterbottom’s locality was Khati, and 
not Kathi. Their specimen, which is in the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic 
Garden of Calcutta, has no rhizome ; but otherwise it agrees exactly with Trot- 
ter’s. It is distinctly a Diplozium , with curved sori long for their breadth ; and 
it differs also in cutting from Athyrium crmatum , Rupr., the habitats re- 
corded for which are —Scandinavia, by way of Siberia, to Japan. Mr. Mc- 
Donell collected some more specimens of his plant in Kashmir in 1894, and 
sent one, with other ferns, to Colonel Bed dorm who reduced it to A . cmiatum , 
Rupr., saying that it exactly agreed with Japan specimens. Colonel Bed- 
dome had not then seen the Kumaun plant. But Mr. McDouall's Kashmir 
specimens, though they are smaller, more compound in cutting, and more 
delicate, agree in rhizome and sori with the Japan specimens of A. equami- 
gerum, with which species I became acquainted on returning to "England 
in 1896. Mr. McDonell wrote in 1895—*“ As to Trotteri , it seemed to me 
that the plant I got in September 1891 is not quite the same as that 
I sent last year ; the former was growing in a cave, the latter is common 
on hill sides, growing with Fihx-mas, under cover of trees, in shady 
places. ” 
Mr. Marten’s specimens from Chamba, and Mr. Gamble’s from the Raien- 
garb Forests, are large, and intermediate in cutting between the Kumaun 
and the Kashmir plants. Mr. Duthie’s Kashmir specimens, No. 12630, are 
more like A . crmatum, though some of them differ considerably. His No. 
14100 quite matches a specimen from Japan, Yezo — Forks de Yubari , 
Faurie No. 8111, 3rd July 1892 ; but the rhizomes are not complete 
enough. 
