210 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIV, 
s< an P. luctuosum , Kze.” ; and, again, “ luctuosum, Kze. is the same as my 
No. 20 A. Tsus-Simense, v. n. 20. ,, 
Christ places A. luctuosum as a var. of 6. P . lobatum , and says of it : — 
Distinct, from its deltoid form, not elongated, and with a frond the lowest pinnsa 
of which are the longest. The frond is borne on a bare stipe, of one-third to one- 
half the length of the frond. Throughout ( en outre ) the scaly covering of the 
rhachis consists of black, long, and very narrow scales. The basal scales are narrow, 
blackish. The plant is of less height (plus basse), the pinnae (pinnules ?) are slightly 
amricled, subsessile, decurrent (except the superior basal pinnule which is broadly 
stalked), stoutly toothed, but not ari state. 
u Kunze’s name, relating as it does to the black covering of the plant, very well 
indicates its peculiarity. 
u Habitat.— Southern Africa ; Boschberg,<McOwan), Drakenberg (Rehman, 7204). ^ 
Hooker’s description of A. ( Polyst .) Tsus-Simense is long and minute. As 
to Habitat he gives only the Island of Tsus Sima ; and he adds— “I find no 
described species to accord with this. The scales of the caudex are singular 
in shape and peculiarly black ; the upper portion of the fond is pinnated, 
the rest regularly bipinnate, the lowest pair of pinnae deflexed.” In the Kew 
Herbarium, on the same sheet with Dickins’ specimen from Yokohama, is a 
larger frond with ticket — “ Polystichum luctuosum , Perie Bush, British 
Kaffraria, May 7th, 1861, W. Durban.” Opposite this Sir William Hooker 
has written in pencil— “ black hairs on the rachis — hence true luctuosum of 
Kze., in Linn. 10 p.” Another sheet from South Africa (a plant with caudex 
and four fronds in a tuft) has two tickets, one written by Baker (?) — Aspidium 
luctuosum , Kze., No. 11, Natal, Buchanan ; and the other, Buchanan’s own 
ticket, is (reed. 8/69) “ 11. A very fair specimen-natural colour well pre- 
served n (it is pale olive green) : “Grows in same bush and similar places 
with Aspid . . aculeatum, of which lla is our ordinary type, only not at all so 
plentifully. If only a variety, it is a very marked one. But is it indeed so ? ” 
14. A* SGtoSUm, Wall. Cat. 371. A. aculeatum , Sw. var. 6, setosum 9 
Wall. Cat. 3,71, C. K. 510. Polystichum aculeatum , Sw. var. 9 setosum 9 Wall., 
Bedd. H. B. 209. 
N,-W. P.: Brit, and T. Garhtoal— 8000', P. W. Mackinnon, April 1881 ; Kumaun — 
R. Blink, fide Wallich, in Herb. Hort. Kew.; near Khati 7700', S. & W. 1848 ; Pindar 
Gorge — Khati 7000', Trotter 1891. 
Distrib. — Asia : N. Inch (Him.)— Nepal, Wallich 1820 ; Sikkim. 
This plant is not mentioned by Baker, either in the ‘‘Synopsis” or ‘in his 
“ Summary of New Ferns.” Clarke, while giving it as a mere variety of 
A . aculeatum says : — 
“ This seems to me more worthy of specific rank than many other specieB of 
Polystichum retaihed by Mr. Baker. The series is not merely defined by being 
fibril lose on the surface of the frond beneath ; the whole set is remarkably uniform 
in cutting; the frond is large, long-lanceolate; the primary pinnae numerous, 
