Tackles a major problem in fern botany, the increasing practice of naming `mistaken' new species. Aspects and origins of the problem are discussed and followed by a comprehensive, annotated list of incorrect names given since Independence in 1947 to pteridophytes occuring in the Indian subcontinent, showing where errors were made and what are hoped to be the correct names. In drawing widely on and correlating research on ferns in China and Japan it is also relevant to the general study of ferns throughout Asia.