Colenso. — On Cryptogams. 319 



and grow and live, which serves to make their appearance the 

 mere singular. 



This plant is a species of Astelia, and probably A. sjneata, 

 Col.,* which species, as far as I know, is confined to this 

 wooded district. There are several species of this genus known 

 to inhabit New Zealand, and some of them are of a very large 

 size, especially in the northern woods, where, high up in the 

 lofty trees, they resemble huge crows' nests. 



And now, my audience, I have done. Believe me, — 



There is a pleasure in the pathless woods ; 

 There is a rapture on the lonely shore ; 

 There is society where none intrudes, 

 By the deep Sea, and music in its roar : 

 I love not Man the less, but Nature more. 



Byron, " Childe Harold." 



Art. XLII. — Cryptogams : A Description of a few Lately- 

 discovered Bare Indigenous Ferns ; edso, Notice of a Fine 

 and Peculiar Fungus, Ileodictyon, Tulasne, = Clathrus r 

 Cooke. 



By William Colenso, F.B.S., F.L.S. (Lond.), &c. 



[Read before the Hawkc's Bay Philosophical Institute, 28th November, 



1892.] 



Order I. Filices. 



Genus 11. t Adiantum, Linn. 



1. A. pullum, sp. nov. 



Ehizome as stout as a goose-quill, creeping, densely 

 hairy and scaly ; hairs reddish-black ; scales black, large, 

 acuminate, glossy. Plant 6in.-8in. (sometimes lOin.-llin.) 

 high, subereot and drooping, ovate and subpedate ; several 

 fronds springing close together from rhizome, 6-8 within 

 lin. ; stipes (and rhachises) very slender, almost filiform, 

 black, glossy, mostly curved or irregular not straight, 4in.-5in. 

 long, rarely 6in.-7in., channelled on upper surface, slightly 

 scaly below and semi-muricatulate ; frond 3in.-4in. (sometimes 

 5in.-5iin.) long, always more or less dark-coloured on both 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xiv., p. 335, for m., and vol. xv., p. 340, for 

 /. plant. 



t The numbers attached to orders and genera are those of them in 

 " Handbook of the Flora of New Zealand." 



