THE FERNS OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA . 
2m 
Turning again to the three individual plants mentioned in the 
Synopsis as being varieties of the imaginary comprehensive species 
No. 18, A, aculeatum , I find some difficulty in ascertaining their 
distinguishing characters. Swartz’s description is 
“ frondibus bipinnatis, pinnis pinnatis, pinnulis ovatis acutis sub- 
falcatis ciliato-spinosis, subtus pilosis, rachi paleacea, sfcipifcs 
strigoso, Smith britfc. 
Polypodium aculeatum , , L. 
Polypodium setiferum. Forsk fl. acg.ar. 
Pluk. ph. t. 180. f. 1. 3, Moris, p. 14. t-3. f. 15, 
(Schkuhr 1.. c. t. 39.— ‘ W. M.) Europa. Arabia, Gap. bon. 
spei” 
This shows clearly that the fern Swartz described had ciliate spines on 
the pinnules, and therefore was soft and not prickly ; but the rest of the 
description is too vague, and the' only substantial difference in his des- 
cription of his A. lobatum is-— C| 'pinnis approximate .” Swartz seems to 
have done little more than transfer Linnaeus’s plant from Poly podium 
to Aspidium ; but Willdenow, only two years later, interpolated in 
Linnaeus’s list A. angulare^ and from his descriptions of that and A 0 
aculeatum it is clear that under the new name he recognised a fern 
with a more compound cutting and a laser texture than he saw A. 
aculeatum had. He, however, gave only Hungaria as the habitat for 
A. angulare , whereas now it seems to be a very widely distributed 
species. 
E. J. Lowe, in “ British Ferns, 1891,” the latest authority I can 
find says ■“ A. aculeatum Sw.— Pinnules stalklets, with acute 
angled or wedge- shaped bases ; whilst in A, angulare the pinnules 
are stalked and their bases obtuse-angled. In A. aculeatum the fronds 
are darker and more shining, stouter and more leathery in texture* 
and the habit of the plant is more erect.” Mr. T. Moore ? who 
considered them distinct species, said the chief differences between 
the two were — the obtuse angle of the stalked pinnule of P. angu- 
lare, and the acute-angled, or wedge-shaped base of the sessile 
pinnule of the more divided states of P, aculeatum. Mr. James 
Britten, in {t European Ferns,” says » u So far as our experience 
goes they are not often found together, but they contrast very 
effectively with each other when planted in a rockery, the stiff 
upright fronds of P. aculeatum towering above the softer and more 
drooping ones of P. angulare.” To a sheet in the Kew Herbarium 
(general collection) marked in Sir W. J. Hooker’s handwriting—* 
