THE FERNS OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA * 
197 
var u acanthophyllum (sp. Franchet) of A, aculeatum , which— opposing Baker, 
who in his Summary of New Ferns accepts it as a species— he sets up in the 
Supplement to his Handbook. 
In the “ Synopsis Ftlkum ” this fem is characterised as 44 quite doubtfully 
distinct from some of the forms of aurieulatum and aculeatum.” I know no 
form of A. aurieulatum which A. ilicifolium in the least resembles ; and it 
certainly is very different from the three species I have above separated from 
it ; and Mr. Clarke suggests no resemblance to any of these, though he says 
there are intermediates between A. ilicifolium and A. aculeatum , which no one 
up to the time when he wrote had ventured to name. There is no doubt a 
great resemblance to A. rufo-barbatum Wall in the cutting (of segments, not of 
frond) and texture of A, ilicifolium , and since Mr. Clarke wrote M. Franchet 
has 44 rushed in ” and named a Chinese plant A. acanthophyllum . On seeing 
the scrap of this in Kew I adopted this name for a somewhat common N.-W. 
Himalayan plant, to which I had been giving the variety names of contortum , 
and, afterwards, pseud-ilic, folium. Holding to my present scheme of admitting 
no varieties in ferns except cultural ones, and not being able to see that any 
one of these three ferns is a mere form of another of them, I keep them sepa- 
rate as species ; and I would describe A. ilicifolium as follows 
ss St. tufted, often densely so, 2 — 9 ins. long, slender, clothed some- 
times sparsely with large broad scales, mixed sometimes with fibrils ; 
Jr. 6—10 ins. long f in. to J in. broad ; pinnae subdeltoid or 
broadly lanceolate, f in. long, apex mucronate, with a large 
mucronate auricle below generally nearly, and sometimes quite, free 
in large specimens, and several mucronate lobes above, pinnae become 
ing very distant and rather smaller towards the base of frond ; texture 
very coriaceous ; both surfaces naked, except for a few scales on the 
underside of the costa ; rhachis slender, clothed with narrow hair- 
pointed scales ; veins immersed— best visible on upper side, forked 
once or twice in the lobes ; sori one in each lobe, and in two rows in 
the auricle, large in proportion to the size of the segments. ” 
Blanford was soeptical as to the claim of this fern to specific rank, and 
considered it an alpine form of A. aculeatum , graduating into A, . rufo-barbatum ; 
but he evidently included A. acanthophyllum , 
8. A. ao& nth ophy II am Franchet, in Bull. Bot. Soc. France 1885, 
28 ; Baker in Summary of New Ferns, Ann. Bot., Vol. V., No. xviii. 
Polystichum aculeatum, var» acanthophyllum (Franchet), Bedd. Suppt. H. B. 
48. Plate XXIX. 
Punjab : Hazara Dist.— Black Mt., Trotter in List ; near Chittabat, Gatacra 
1888 j Chamba — =Dalhousie 7500', Ravi Vy. 8000', McDonell; “ Ch^mba’ 1 J, Marten 1898 j 
8 
