A reply:
"Yes, Professor Khullar has adequately outlined the reasons, which I had
explained to him when we worked together on his West Himalayan book. I
should have mentioned his book, which remains probably the most useful
account in existence of a large chunk of Indian ferns. But I did not
detail the history again as it has been explained many times since - as
with many other revised names from a decade and more ago - and it is no
longer what I would think of as a "name change" now, because it appears to
be rather well established. Were there a further change recently that was
not so well known it would be important to explain it again, but this one
doesn't seem to have any problens attached to it as far as I know.
I think just to help people recognise the species I should just
point out that in the "Illustrated fern Flora of the West Himalaya"
account, plates 69 and 72, while the important stipe-base scales are
correct, the lamina labelled C. dalhousiae (plate 72) is a very typical A.
bicolor, with its characteristic deltate-pentagonal frond and abruptly
longest lowest basiscopic pinnule of the lowest pinna. But the lamina on
plate 69 labelled as C. bicolor is not A. bicolor, but matches A.
leptolepis, with shorter lowest pinnules and a more elongated-triangular
lamina. So collections of what is thought to be probably A. bicolor need
to be matched with the lamina of Plate 72 ("dalhousiae"), not plate 69.
The choice of Aleuritopteris or Cheilanthes remains an arbitrary
decision, depending on several different factors, and will doubtless differ
from one account to another. Such decisions are naturally always going to
be hard or impossible to standardise!
Chris F.-J."
On 10 August 2012 09:27, Dr. S.P. Khullar <[email protected]> wrote:
> Although Mr C R Fraser-Jenkins has explained the details about
> Cheilanthes (Aleuriopteris) bicolor, he has not given the reasons for
> the name change. In India this fern was known as Cheilanthes farinosa.
> It was Manton, Roy & Jarrett (1966) who pointed out that the name for
> the indian plants which were diploids need to be changed, since the
> name C farinosa was for the triploid from Yemen.Incindently there is a
> tetraploid also. Manton et al did not propose any new name for the
> diploid. After that a lot many people suggested various names for the
> Indian taxon. Mr Fraser-Jenkins desreves the credit for locating a
> specimen of Pteris bicolor (specimen in Brussels) collected by Roxburg
> (from Kumaun Himalaya) and this was the Hiolotype rather than C
> dealbata of Wallich. (Details given in 'AN Illustrated Fern Flora of
> the West Himalaya By S P Khullar, Vol 1. Published by MS International
> Book Distributors, Dehra Dun (1994). It was in this flora that the
> name Cheilanthes bicolor (Roxberg) Fraser-Jenkins was used following
> Fraser-Jenkins (1992).
> I feel when a name change is suggested reasons for the change of name
> should be given
> S P Khullar
>
> On 8/9/12, Neha Singh <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Big Thanks to Dr Chris Fraser-Jenkins for this detailed and precise
> > information on Silver fern and Id.
> > Thanks Garg ji for frwrdng this .
> > Thanks to Pankaj n HS too.
> >
> > Regards
> > Neha Singh
> >
>
--
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