188 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIV . 
it is then seen that they are very few in a group, and that the sori are gener- 
ally placed on the short inferior veinlets of the groups which take off nearer 
the costa than the margin, and that these veinlets seldom, if ever, go beyond 
the sori— see Beddome’s drawing, F. S. I., t. 1 20. Occasionally the sori are 
medial on a vein which reaches the margin. In A. marginatum the veinlets 
are so numerous in the narrow groups that their number is not easily counted 
with a lens ; it appeal’s, however, to be from five to seven, and all reach the 
margin. All round the margin is a pale-coloured fringe, mucronately toothed 
in correspondence with the veinlets, from which feature I conjecture Wallich 
named the plant. In A . auriculatum I see no such margin. In both species 
the auricle at base of pinnae has a distinct costa or pinnated vein ; but in 
A. marginatum , this auricle is broader and has more veinlets than in the other 
species. Finally, though in A . auriculatum large fronds are distinctly but 
shallowly lobed or serrated in correspondence with the groups of veinlets, even 
the smallest ; n A . marginatum are generally so ; and in large fronds this is 
carried so far that the frond becomes quite bipinnatifid nearly to the second- 
ary rhachis,— »the distance between the groups of veins becoming greater in 
order to admit of this. I first observed this in some of Mr. P. W. Mackin- 
non’s specimens from British Garhwal, which, when collecting them, I believe 
he identified with the simple narrow form arid named A. ■ auriculatum, 
van 0 marginatum , Wall, or A. aculeatum , var. In one frond I have, 
9 in. 1. by 2| in. hr., the pinnae are merely lobed, but in the lowest pair the 
auricles are free to the midrib ; in another (apex wanting), probably 12 in. 
by 8| in. the seven lowest pairs of pinnae are cut down nearly to the rhachis 
into rhomboidal-ovate segments, and the upper pail’s are diminishingly cut. 
In two other fronds, 15 and 16 in. 3. by 5 in. hr., the auricles are quite free, 
and the pinnae am less cut towards their acuminate apices, and towards the 
apex of the frond. Each lobe, or segment, has a costa, and up to eight 
veinlets on either side, which do not fork ; all run out to the margin. The 
segments more or less overlap each other. There seems to be a small spinulose 
tooth for every veinlet, and a larger stiff one for the principal vein of each 
group. But none of these four fronds is fertile. I should when I received 
them, have put the three last mentioned fronds under A. aculeatum , Swartz, 
had not Mr. Mackinnon gathered them for A , marginatum , and but for 
the characters given above, which agree witn those for that species. A 
specimen I have from Sikkim, collected by Mr. Levinge, has stipe 8£ in. 
long, and frond lOf in. long by 2| in. wide near the base, with up to eight 
pairs of distinct, toothed lobes in the pinnae, the lowest superior on the 
lowest pinnae quite free. This has the characteristic metallic sheen and other 
peculiarities above described. 
