THE FERNS OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA. 
179 
Pending the collection of further material in the Himalaya, I have given 
up the attempt to differentiate the three forms, and I give the following de- 
scription which is intended to cover all the Indian specimens 
“ Rhizome more or less slender, widely creeping and branching, black, 
sending up fronds 1 inch, more or less, apart, stipes sometimes in clusters. 
Stipes up to 1 foot or more long, slender but wiry, their bases clothed with 
very dark brown large lanceolate-acuminate scales, extending a short way 
up the stipes and then becoming. scarce. Rhachis with a few scattered scales 
the same as those at the base of the stipes, but smaller, and with tufts of linear 
scales in the axils. Frond subdeltoid, bipinnate. Pinnae markedly ^etio- 
late, about 13 pairs besides the acuminate pinnatifid apex— lower 5—0 pairs 
almost opposite, lanceolate-acuminate! lowest 1^ — 2 in. br. s 2 inches 
apart, all distant. Pinnules 10—11 pairs besides the crenate apex, distant, 
patent, deeply cut into rectangular rounded segments towards the base, and 
cremated towards the acuminate apex, margins scarcely toothed. Veins — 3 — 5 
pairs in a segment, curved and often forked. Son T J- — ^ inches long, very 
narrow, curved like the veins, up to five in number in lower segments and in 
others one on each lowest anterior veinlet, pointing to the sinus between 
the segments, and forming a row curving outwards on each side of the 
costa : some of the lowest diplazoid, or semidiplazoid. Involucres persisted, 
and sometimes much broader than the sorus.” 
Mettenius’s description was written from a fragment collected in Japan by 
Siebold : it began— “ Rhizoma ? ”, and ended— indusium membranaceum 
tenerum integerrimum. ” 
Mr. Baker’s description in the Synopsis is ■ 
“ 238 A. (Dipl.) squamigerum , Mett.; st. Gins, or more long, straw- 
coloured, slender, with small scattered, nearly black lanceolate scales throughout ; 
fr. 12 — 15 ins, long by nearly as broad, deltoid, lower pinnae G— 9 ius. long, 
2 — 2 A in. broad pinnate except at the apex ; pinnules ins. long, £ ins. 
broad, the point blunt, the eige broadly lobed, the lower lobes \ in. broad 
entire ; texture herbaceous ; rachis slender, stramineous, chaffy below ; veins 
subfiabellate, the lower veinlets of the lobes with one or two lateral curved 
forks on each side ; mi linear, cuvved, falling far short of the edge, the lowest 
2 lin. long. Mett. Fil. Xud. 2, p. 239.” 
“ Hab.— Japan, Oldham , Siebold , Robinson 
Asplenium (Athyr.) crenatum Rupr. resembles A. (Dipl.) squami- 
gerum in having a black creeping rhizome, and broad ovate-lanceolate 
dark-coloured scales at the base of the stipes ; and also in the crenate 
pinnules. The rhizome of some specimens of the Kashmir plant is 
almost as slender as that of A. crenatum : that of others, and of the Japan 
