HISTORY OF INTRODUCTION OF EXOTIC FERNS. 25- 
Malacca would also form a striking addition to our 
trojfical ferneries, its pinnate fronds being from three 
to four feet long on stipes about half as long again, 
rising- from an arborescent caudex. In Blame’s 
“Enumeration of the Ferns of Java” alone, no less 
than 460 species are described, of which about 300 
are regarded as new. Many of them are, however, not 
distinct as species, but are fine and showy and well 
worth the cultivator’s notice. 
Remarkable for their structural characters, there- 
are Sphceropteris barbata of Nepal, and Diacalpe 
aspidioides of Eastern Bengal and Java; the fronds 
of the former resembling those of a Lastrea dilatata r 
but having globose sori with cup-shaped indusia 
elevated on distinct pedicels, while the latter has 
very similar sori not elevated. Another Fern of 
Eastern Bengal worthy of notice is the Acrophorus 
nodosus, a species with large decompound fronds 
remarkable on account of their pinnae standing out 
almost horizontally, or at right angles with the main 
rachis. The same district, including the Khasaya and 
Silhet hills, Assam, Bootan, Sikkim, &c., is extremely 
prolific in fine Ferns, which, though familiar enough 
in a botanical point of view, are still unknown in 
our gardens : they would yield a rich harvest to a 
collector of living plants; and it is not a little re- 
markable that so few of them have as yet been in- 
troduced through the Botanic Garden of Calcutta. 
The total number of known species of Indian Ferns 
may be stated in round numbers to be 400 ; and what 
we have of these have been received from their other 
habitats. I cannot, of course, attempt to give a list 
of Indian desiderata ; but, in addition to the two or 
