is for a very luxuriant specimen evidently from a rich, damp and shaded place. 
I have specimens agreeing with this latter from rich soil on the banks of a 
stream near Mr. McCall’s House in Maskeliya. It is my belief that the original 
specimens of A. (D.) Japonicum, Thunb, Thwaitesii, A. Br., and lasiopteris, Mett. 
with their 11 wide creeping rhizomes ” and villose stipes and fronds, are all one 
species, which should retain Thunberg’s oldest name A. Japonicum, from which 
Wallich’s A. decussatum, with an erect caudex, and now called A. (D.) polyrhizon, 
Baker, and A. (D.) Schkuhrii, Thw. also with an erect caudex, must of course 
be separated. I shall now give Mr. Wall’s note in his Postscript on this group, 
and with reference to his doubts about the distinctness of the C. P. Nos. 3332. 
and 3100, Mr. Thwaites’s note on Mr. Wall’s suit of specimens already referred 
to, indicate that he considers them distinct. 
Asplenium Japonicum, Thumb. — The Japanese type of this species resembles 
very closely our Aspl. Thwaitesii, insomuch that the only present representative 
of the species at Kew from Ceylon was sent by Dr. Thwaites as a “ large form” 
of Thwaitesii , and with the same C. P. number, 1343. This number therefore 
represents both speeies in part, if, in fact, the two are really distinct. C. P. 
3951, mentioned in the list of Dr. Thwaites’ addenda, page 11, as Aspl. Decus- 
satum, Wallich, and hitherto . referred to A. Japonicum, is a good species, differ- 
ing from Japonicum chiefly in having an erect caudex. As there is already an 
Aspl. Decussatum, however, Mr. Baker gives the Ceylon species the name of A. 
Polyrhizon, owing to its dense mass of wiry roots. This is the species figured by 
Beddome in plate 292 of his ‘ Ferns of British India.” 
Another Ceylon species included under Japonicum in the first edition of the 
Synopsis, will appear in the second as A. Schkuhrii, Thwaites. This plant has 
also an upright caudex. Its C. P. number is 3100, and it is figured in Bed- 
dome’s ‘ Ferns of Southern India, ’ plate 230. To me this seems to run too 
close to some forms of the very variable species Dipl. Decurrens of Beddome, 
which=A. Maximum, Don. 
103. Asplenium (Dipfazium) polypodioides, Mett. 
Bed. 1. t. 163, and 11. tt. 293, and 327. This is a most abundant 
and very variable fern, found from the Fort ditch at Hangwella, about 19 
miles from Oolombo, up to the higher altitudes of the Kandyan country, and 
vying in size with some of our tree ferns, when growing in rich soil on the 
banks of streams. It will grow easily in pots or in a fernery in Colombo. — 
My specimens of Nos. 104, 105, and 107 were all put up in the same packets 
with 103, and my impression is that 100, 103, 105, and 107 will all be found 
to run gradually into each other, but see my notes on these. 
104. Asplenium (Diplazium) decurrens, Beddome. 
Bed. 1. t. 229. C. P. 3332. Thwaites gives this as a variety of the above, 
and asks if it be a distinct species, and gives Ambagamua as its habitat. My 
specimens were with difficulty separated from the packets containing 103, and 
must have been collected in Kallibokka. — It seems a well marked species, of 
thinner texture and lighter color than 103. Baker says of it. “ A common 
Indian plant, like A. sylvaticum (100 above) in texture, a single lower pinna 
of this resembling a whole frond of that,”— None of my specimens indicate this 
resemblance. I have lately (March 1874) collected abundance of this Fern in 
Maskeliya near Mr. McCall’s House, not far from Adam’s Peak, and though some 
specimens of 101/1 A. (D.) Schkuhrii show a decurrcnt tendency in their ex- 
tremelies, they seem quite distinct. No. 100 A. (D.) sylvaticum is most likely 
only a young form of A. latifolium as already hinted at, but I cannot see any 
marked resemblance between our Ceylon specimens of A. decurrens and A. Sylva- 
ticum. What A. maximum Don, for which Baker quotes A. decurrens, as a 
synonyum is, no one seems well to know, but as the latter seems a well marked 
Ceylon Fern I retain Beddome’s very characteristic name for it. I have specimens 
of a fern collected in the belt of Forest separating Dimboola from Maskeliya, 
which may be a young state of A, decurrens, growing in a more exposed 
