238 JOURNAL, BOMBA Y NA TURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIV , 
The above description has been written by me from a large series of speci- 
mens. I first gathered this fern at Naini Tal in island again at Simla in 
1871. I was very familiar with it at Mussooree from 1880 t»o 1806, where it. 
is one of the commonest ferns in and. near forest, on the north side of the ridge. 
On dry ground it is small and poor, and like Claris type. of F.-ms } <wr. 
2, normaiis ; buiin ricli moist soil^ in open shade, it developes into a large hand- 
some plant, with a number of fronds growing up simultaneously from the apex 
of a suberect or decumbent stout caudex, but not shuttlecock- wise from an erect 
caudex, like the fronds cf N. F.-mas, Generally the four, always three, 
..lowest pairs, of pinnae are barren, and not uncommonly five pairs. This may be 
taken as a character of the species. The sori are small, but the involucre? 
when young are twice as large as the sori, shrivelling up when they ripen. 
. The pinnae are ; all distant, increasingly so downwards to 3— 3-|- in. apart in 
large fronds. The stipes is generally long. Before I saw this fully-developed 
r.tate of the plant I thought the Mussooree fern must be Clarke's normaiis. I 
objected to the species being put under F.-mas , , and when, later, I received 
Assam specimens from Mr. Clarke, I identified them with the small lbrm of the 
Mussooree fern. When I went to England in 18.88, and studied at Kew, 1 
• 89CK . 
noted— a No specimen that I have, or have seen, marked var. normahs by 
Mr. Clarke is at all like A 7 . Film-mas, either in stipe, shape of frond, cutting, 
or sori.” I classified on paper all the specimens like nmnalis, or like the 
Mussooree larger fern, into groups: — I. Old specimens, identical with 
Clarke's own, found freely scattered through bundles marked as containing not 
only F-mas i and varieties of it, but N. rigidnm, Desv.,and these M r. Clarke 
had apparently not identified as Iris normaiis. The earliest collected of 
these is, I think, a frond collected by Jacquemont at Mussooree, No. 592, and 
it had been marked N. remotum by Mr. Clarke Another, fi$ip£ ^gb^iiis^an, 
Griffith, Mr. Clarke bad marked AA- rigidnm, Desv. Two or three sheets, of 
Dr. Bacon's collecting, have tickets— “ Mussooree, abundant,” and— “ N.-West 
India, Mr. Edgeworth.” There are about a dozen sheets of these old specimens, 
collected from Kashmir to Kumaun, but all unmistakably A 7 , odonioloma, 
““"’Tir t wi .u.yaoi .lugari — waAiv nawav- atwavl ; ffAT.rtr^ 
Moore. 
• Group II. comprises seven sheets of. Mr. Clarke’s own collecting in Kashmir 
and at Dalhousie in the Chamba State, marked rigidnm or remotum. A wrapper 
marked by him ^ Lid. Or, rigidnm ? contained either Nimarginatum, Wall.;; or 
very large and hdtnpddhd 'spochhehS'-'’ of' collected 7 by 
Jacquemont, Straohey and Winterbottom, Hook. fil. et Thoms, and Edge- 
' - A vr ' ' , ~\ - J y - V1 ip T ,. . . 
worth, .None of -these.. seemed.. t$ ; ,me m tho l(pt. like the, European rigidnm or 
remotum. Some loos© sheets had: mastly been^i^ferred .hb.QUgh. they 
weffe' ^-not in a figidUffc 1 wrapper. I thought ) them inot even dike that species. 
™ - were named pallidum by the collectors, which name well indicates their 
^ *0005 svod'j hn£ i'ti'giiK.—Lsil ,8 
