NeBIO I www.nebio.in I March 2019 I 10(1): 29-31 ALEURITOPTERIS TAMBURII (HOOK.) CHING (PTERIDACEAE): A NEW RECORD TO THE FERN FLORA OF WEST BENGAL, INDIA Norbu Sherpa1 and Lhamu Sherpa2 1Working Plan (North) Division, Sankar Villa, Ladenla Road, Darjeeling 734104, India 2Post Graduate Department of Botany, Darjeeling Government College, Darjeeling 734101, India Email:
[email protected] (corresponding author),
[email protected] ABSTRACT An endangered fern species Aleuritopteris tamburii (Hook.) Ching is collected and reported from Darjeeling district of West Bengal. In India, the species was known previously from Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya and Sikkim.The present paper reports the presence of this species in West Bengal. KEYWORDS: Cheilanthes, Aleuritopteris tamburii, Darjeeling, new record, West Bengal, Pteridaceae. Introduction The silver Fern or Lip Fern are a group of ferns possessing many The District of Darjeeling lies between 26˚ 31' to 27˚ 13' N latitudes generic names, of which old world genus Aleuritopteris Fee is and between 87˚ 59' to 88˚ 53' E longitudes(O’Malley, 1999) and is distinguished from American genus Cheilanthes Swartz in the around 1364 km² in area. Diverse topographical conditions have shape of lamina and by the presence of white or yellow farina been favored by various altitudinal ranges from 150m at Sukna to (Kholia et al., 2010). Based on molecular data, the genus 3636m at Sandakphu (Das, 1995, 2004). The area is an important comprises about 70 species (Patil and Dongare, 2017) and is constituent of Eastern Himalaya and being bordered by Nepal in distributed in the tropical and sub-tropical areas of the Old and the West, Bhutan in the East, Sikkim in the North and Terai-Plains the New World.