204 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY. SOCIETY, Vol. XIV. 
‘‘ Ireland, IX Moore, 5 * and also, in pencil—' A. Bramii , intermediate 
between aculeatum and angulare 9 ” is pinned a note written by D. Moore, 
as follows 
44 After considerable attention to Aspidium lobatum and A. aculeatum , 1 
cannot think them distinct species, though I find they are still retained as 
such by persons who have no doubt had equally good opportunities of judging. 
Consequently I shall only state my own ideas on the subject at present, when it 
appears to me they altogether depend on their places of growth for the slight 
characters which distinguish them. Whenever I find the species growing in 
warm shady situations, it assumes the habit of aculeatwm by having the pinnule 
slightly petiolate and generally larger. A little further up the mountain glens 
it becomes lobatum good ; and when it is fotind very high the pinnules are 
scarcely divided at all. A . angular e is equally common here ” (in Ireland 7) 
44 and a very distinct species. I should say there were only two species, A . 
lobatum or aculeatum, whichever you like to call it, and A. angulare , both 
rather variable, but their varieties are easily traced to the original. 4 ® 
I understand Mr. Baker now to agree, substantially, that A. lobatum 
is merely A, aculeatum in a less developed state ; though in the Synop- 
sis 91 he said that the last mentioned plant is less coriaceous than is the 
other ; and I therefore think I may safely allow the existence of A. 
lobatum , as an Indian fem, to depend upon the existence there of A, 
aculeatum . 
Dr. EL Christ, in a monograph —* H Les differentes formes de Polystichum 
aculeatum (L. sub . Polypodio ), Lcur Qrdupement , et Lew Dispersion, y 
compris Les varieties Exotiquos , published in Bull. Bot Soe. grosses, 
livr® III, 1893, has taken quite as wide a view of this group of Polys- 
tichum as any of the botanists who have written of Indian ferns ; but 
his treatment of the subject is too deductive for me ; it seems only to 
deepen the haze in which the subject has been enveloped by the profitless 
effort to bring together under the specific name aculeatum, given by 
Linne, several plants which are abundantly distinct. 
|n proceeding to deal with the North-West Indian material of this group 
I shall, in the first place, divide it according to texture, into fi coria- 
ceous X hard and tough plants, and “ herbaceous”, thin and soft plants ; 
and having thus cleared the way, I shall see whether any subdivision of 
these two categories is necessary. I can find nothing I feel justified in 
calling A. aculeatum, but much that I cannot say is not A. angulare.] 
A. Texture very coriaceous . Sp, II, 
II. A. eqimrrosum Don {rufo-barbatum Wall Cat, 869) ; Sya. M 
252, under A. aculeatum Sw. A. aculeatum Sw., var. % rufo-barbatum (sp.) 
Wall., 0. B. 509. Polystichum aculeatum Sw., var, F rufo-barbatum Wall., 
bedd. H. B. 207, F. S. I., t. 121. 
