THE FERNS OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA. 
219 
I have two plants of this from Mr. Duthie, one without a ticket, but both 
are, I believe, from the Tehri Garhwal locality. Both are sterile. They are 
tufts, on an apparently erect caudex. The stipes are glabrous ; and the veins 
are distant and simple. Some stipes are longer than the fronds. Clarke makes 
three varieties besides the type : the Garhwdl plant may be h s var. decipims , 
which Beddome, in his Hand-book, thought might be a distinct species, but, 
in the Supplement to that work, retained as a variety. In their “ Supplemen- 
tary Note on the Ferns of Northern India,” read before the Linnean Society 
3rd November 1881, (Journ. Linn. Soc. XXV.) will be found descriptions of 
five varieties or forms, (including the type ?) of this species, introduced 
thus : — 
“ Varietates et formas a C. B. Clarke sub unica specie enumerates, 
ex sententia Beddome 2, vel 3, ex sententia Bakeri 3 vel plures species 
bonas constituunt : sed species a Baker propositas cum species 
Beddomei non conterminae sunt. Sequitur enumeratio formarum — ” 
for which I must refer to the paper itself. In his “ Summary of New Ferns v 
of 1891 Me. Baker does not allude to this joint paper, but merely says that 
Mr. Clarke in his original paper of 1880 describes three Himalayan varieties. 
And Beddome, in his Supplement of 1882, refers to Clarke and Baker’s joint 
paper only by implication, gives two varieties besides the type, and separates 
another as a distinct species. I have not seen this fern, or any of its varieties 
growing* and as none of these authorities has given a habitat for any of 
them west of Nep&l, I might say no more than that the fern I give here is 
quite distinct from any other on my list, and that it is new to N.-W. India. 
In this, as in many other cases, I consider the mode of vernation all important ; 
and — notwithstanding the statement in the Synopsis Filicnm — I find that 
in all the specimens named N. gracilescens , Hook., and var. dedpims , this seems 
to be the same, namely — rhizome decumbent or horizontal, slow-growing, 
throwing up fronds in tufts, and dying off behind, probably annually. A. 
glanduliferum , K>e., is undoubtedly a distinct species, for it has a widely creep- 
ing and branching, slender, rhizome, which I should think must continue to 
throw up fronds at intervals (of distance) for a whole growing season at least, 
and in a moist climate, probably without cessation, though the hinder part 
must also continually be perishing. Mr. Clarke called this fern N. repentidum 
n. sp., until he found that it had already been named and described. 
6. N. calcaratum, Hook. ; Syn. Fil. 274. Aspidium calcaratum Bl. 
En. Fil. Jav., p. 159. - 
N.-W. P. : Brit. Garh . : Bhainskil, near Parewa, Kotal Range, about 8000', Coll. 
I n&yafc (native collector), June 1902, No. 26048 of Saharanpur Herbarium $ N. Ov,dh y 
Forests, R. Thompson 1870. 
Distbib. — N. India to Ceylon, Burma, Hong Kong, Philippines , Malaccas . 
