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238 NOTES ON THE FERN-FLORA OF CHINA.
from Ceylon. Neither Mettenius nor Baker have apparently ever seen
this species from Japan.
Mr. Sampson has detected in shady parks at Canton an Asplenium
in all respects identical with the Fern distributed from Ceylon under
n. 1247 by Dr. Thwaites, by whom it is regarded as a bipinnate form
of A. Schkuhrii, Mett. ; whilst I cannot myself see how it is to be dis-
tinguished from the West Indian A. radicans, Schk.
I have received from Father Armand David specimens of Scolopen-
driiim Slhiricum, Hook., gathered from cold alpine rocks near Jeliol.
Afipidium devexnm, Kze. (intermedium, J. Sm.) was found, in June
1865, along the West Eiver, in the province of Canton, by Mr. Samp-
son. I give the above name and synonym on the authority of the late
Professor Mettenius, to whom I sent a specimen, whose judgment with
regard to Kunze's Ferns is unimpeachable, he having full access to that
author's herbarium. Mr. Moore, also, from referring in his ' Index'
botli Kunze's and J. Smith's species to the variety /3 of his Sageuia
coadunala, evidently considers tliem identical. The present is pre-
cisely the same as Dr. Thwaite's n. 1358, which Sir W. Hooker doubt-
fully regarded as a var. /S. minor of A. giganteum, BL, whilst he referred
J. Smith's intermedium to the typical form of that species, and placed
A. di'vexum as a synonym of A. cicutarium, Sw. Dr. Thwaites's n.
1357, again, which he considers, no doubt rightly, as the A. giga?deum
of the ' Species Filicum,' Professor Mettenius said is the A. paradoxum
of Fee ; whilst under the same number Gardner appears to have sent
to Kcw the very similar A. wembranifolium, Mett., or A.fuscipes, Wall.,
with which latter name, indeed, my first specimen of A. paradoxum
received from Dr. Thwaites was ticketed. This confusion in nomen-
clature renders it difficult to speak with certainty ; but I believe A.
devexum has only heretofore been found in Java, the Philippines, and
Ceylon. An invaluable revision of some of the species of this excep-
tionably difficult genus, by the lamented Leipzig Professor, will be
found in the Annales Mus. T;ugd.-Bat. i. '2,'ih, seq.
Mr. Sampson gathered beautiful specimens of Aspidium, odoratum,
Bory, on the singular isolated limestone rock called Kai-kun-shek, or
' Cock's-conib-hill,' along the West Ilivcr, 100 miles west of Canton,
in June 1864, and others in the caverns at Sai-chii-shan, in February,
1869. Milde records the species from China, on the authority of the
Petersburg herbarium, therefore, perhaps, from the north of the empire.