C 31 ) 
along its whole length, most of the scales falling off during the operaiion of 
drying, nearly free from scales below ; frond 2 feet 6 inches to 3 feet long, 
ana about 2 feet broad, in a)l my specimens tripinnatc, ovate lanceolate, witn 
numerous pinnm on each side, the lowest from 1 foot 6 inches, to 2 feet long, 
5. to 6 inches broad, long lanceolate, with 6 to 12 pairs of secondary alternate, 
shortly stalked lanceolate pinnse, the upper ones decurrent ; secondary pinnae 
with 8 to 12 pairs of alternate, elliptico-lanceotate decurrent pinnules^ which are 
deeply serrato -dentate. In all my specimens the pinnules are decurreiil from a 
broad base. All my specimens of this fern have dried of a dark brown color, 
ar d have a coarser texture' than the specimens of A. nigripes, collected in Dim- 
boola and bearing the C. P. 1314. A Queensland specimen of a fern named 
“ Athyrium australe, Brack," is the fern most like my Maskeliya one I have 
seen, but it is a more herbaceous plant, and the divisions are all smaller. It 
is also a tripinnate fern, having short stalked secondary pinnee, and decurrent 
pinnules so like our Ceylon plant, that 1 believe they belong to the same 
species. Beddome’s figure (1. t. 158) for A. anstrale Brack, is for a small bi- 
pinnate fern and can scarcely be a form of the Queensland or Ceylon Fern. 
Both Beddome’s figures, and the descriptions in Syn. til. are very unsatisfactory 
in respect to our Ceylon forms of the Athyrium group. Since writing theabo’.e 
I have got a look at the first 3 vols. of Hooker’s Sp. Fil. and the descrip- 
tion, as there given in vol. 3, for A. (Ath:) umbiosum, J. Sm. agrees so well 
for my Fern that 1 conclude they are the same. 
95/2 Asplenium (Athyrium) Filix-foemina, Bernh. 
Bed. 1. t. 154.? The fern which I mean to be included under this name, is 
the C. P. 3067, on which Thwaites has written, “ Asplenium (Athyrium) 
nigripes, Mettenius” not of Blume as quoted by Baker for No. 95. For this 
Thwaites quotes as a synonyum Athyrium tenuifrons , variety straminea, Moore, 
and states that it is found in the forests of the Central Province at an eleva- 
tion of 4000 to 6000 feet. This is a very small delicate fern found in grassy 
places at a high elevation. My specimens were received from Major Hutchison. About 
this form of the A. Filix-foemina, Baker remarks : — “ A tenuifrons, Wall., is like 
A. molle, but with the midrib of the pinnaa, and pinnules “beset with firm yellow 
spines or strigillae as is also the case with various Indian, Ceylonese, and Javan 
forms, with narrower, more slender, and more straggling pinnae and pinnules, 
as A gracile, Don. ; A. stramineum, J. Sm. ; A.tenellum, Wall.; and A . proliferum 
Moore.” There are the strigilln. referred to on our Ceylon specimens, but they 
are so inconspicuous that the use of a Lens is required to distinguish them. 
Small specimens of No. 96, are very like this plant, and Bed. 1. t. 154 
though named for 95/2 is much more like 96. 
96. Asplenium (Athyrium) aspidioides, Schle^t. 
Bed. 1. t. 155? this figure was given as Athyrium pectinatum, Wall.; but 
in a note after the letterpress of Bed. 11. t. 295, he says that it is for 96. Bed. 
1. t. 154, quoted with a doubt for 95/2, is more like my specimens of 96. 
This is a very handsome, and a very abundant fern on the banks of streams in 
the- Lindoola Patnas and in similar places in Nuwara Eliya Plains. I may here 
remark that the figures in Beddom^’s ferns for this group have been mixed up 
in such a manner that I cannot pronounce them satisfactory as most of his' others 
are. Indeed in the note to Bed. 11, t. 295, he makes the following remarks:— 
“ The more I study this group I am inclined to think that the different forms 
of Filix-foemina, pectinatum, or aspidioides and fimbriatum (and perhaps some 
other species^ run so one into the other that it is almost impossible to distinguish 
them satisfactorily and that the only chance of doing it would be by a careful 
examination of numerous plants growing in their natural habitats.” 
97. Asplenium (Diplazium) assimile, Endl. 
Bed. 11. t. 294, for C. P. 1347, good. But on the label Thwaites calls it 
Asplenium (Athyrium) australe, Brack, and remarks: — “The more deltoid and 
flaccid fronds and their smaller ultimate divisions distinguish this species from 
the preceding one” (No. 95.) The C. P. specimens, and Beddome’s good figure 
