260 JOURNAL, BOMBA Y NA TURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV. 
Distrib.— Asia : N. Ind. Sikkim and Bhot&n ; Bengal : Chittagong and 
plain westward, and ascending the Himalaya to 4-5000', Parasn&th Mt. Rev. A. 
Campbell ; Assam— WallicTi 1829 ; all over the Province ; Nambur Forest, Munn. S. 
Ind. : Golconda Hills, west of Vizagapatam, 2-3000', “ involucre distinct ” ; not on 
Western Mts., Beddome in H. B. Burma : li very common near Moulmein, involu- 
cre distinct”, Beddome. Fiji Isles, Seeman ? 
Under P. lineatum , Baker remarks*- 44 Seems not distinct from the next, ” — 
but see my remark above as to the contrast between the two. The present plant 
is more coriaceous, and very dry-looking, with veins very prominent and dis- 
tinct : the fronds are generally broader and shorter, and have fewer pinnae than 
P. lineatum has,— 4-15 pairs in Gamble's and my specimens ; whereas in our P. 
lineatum the number varies from 8 to 30 pairs, only 3 specimens having less 
than 16 pairs. A specimen I have, from Parasnath Mt. in Bengal, is 7 / -6^" 
high from the rhizome, of which total the stipe is 44£ inches, and the frond 
46. It has only 14 pairs of pinnae : the lowest are 10 in. 1., the next pair 12". 
and above that there are several about 13 in. The width of the broadest is 
barely above 1£ in. The pinnae of P. multilineatum are much the broader, and 
the number of pairs of veins runs up to 23 and even 25. Trotter's plant 
from Kumaun has the narrowest pinnae of any I have seen—^J in., but it 
nevertheless has 16 pairs of veins. My Kumaun specimens were growing in 
a swampy slope in forest: very few fronds were fertile. As Beddome added 
in his supplement, the rhizome is creeping : the stipes are distinct. 
Blanford, in his published List, gives Simla as a habitat, saying <s 4 The 
Glen' and some other wooded ravines below 6000'. The pinnae are narrow." 
I think this must be P. lineatum Colebr. His specimen of P. lineatum from 
Chamba is marked by him P. multilineatum , and yet has the narrowest pinnae 
of any lineatum , I have seen, with only 6-7 pairs of veins. ■ Trotter, says 
he collected P. multilineatum in Chamba and Simla ; and if he is right as to 
Major Sage’s specimen from Kashmir this is probable enough ; but the evidence 
I have seems insufficient. 
I have never seen the slightest trace of involucre in this fern, as growing in 
N.-W. India; but I detected some in Gamble’s specimens from the Palkonda 
Hills in the Vizagapatam District, 2500 , and the Rurnpa Hills, 2000', in the 
Godavery District, Madras Presidency. The Bumpa Hills plant has pinn^ cut 
down about J of the half width (£• in terminal pinnse), segments wider than 
in other P. multilineatum, -and not more than 13 pairs of veins, which curve 
upwards; and the sori are as a distance from the costa instead of near it ; 
they are much nearer the ex(jurrent veinlet. These Madras specimens may be 
the same as the Moulmein plant, which I have not seen ; and I suspect 
Beddome may be right in setting Up N. moulmeineme, but wrong in upsetting 
P. multilineatum . In his supplement of 1892 he says that fronds of N. mwl~ 
