312 Transactions. — Botany. 



(Litobrochia) pendula, Col.,* and this I also notice because I 

 have detected it in two other localities in this neighbourhood, 

 but, as before (originally), hanging thickly down from shaded 

 cliffy spots, sides of streamlets difficult of access. Some of 

 the plants were very fine, of most luxurious growth, and 

 looking tempting, so healthy and charming. 



In three dry spots in particular, far apart from each other, 

 in the deep forests between Dannevirke and the Eiver Mana- 

 watu, I have often gazed with delight on thick -growing 

 patches or beds of that extremely neat and graceful tender 

 fern Asplenium flabellifolium, Cav., one of the most elegant of 

 its genus. This wood variety (as I deem it) has much smaller 

 pinnae than this fern commonly has when growing in open 

 places, and they are more finely and sharply cut, and its 

 narrow linear fronds, being also much longer, give it a still more 

 graceful appearance ; its colour, too, is that of a most refresh- 

 ing light emerald-green. All this, however, may naturally 

 arise from its moist shady home in the forests. It forms com- 

 pact and healthy beds by overlying itself considerably {stratum 

 super stratum), the long and delicate fronds emitting at their 

 extreme circinnate tips minute rootlets, which adhere to the 

 soil when they touch it, when they again send out fresh stems, 

 and so form new plants. This fern, however, is well known 

 among us, and that deservedly, from its beauty as a living 

 fern -decoration when suspended in a light wire basket, as 

 well as from its being so easy of culture ; and therefore I 

 should not care to mention it here were it not that it is 

 rapidly becoming very scarce, and those three spots in the 

 dry and ancient woods were so exceedingly lovely that they 

 have left their natural and truthful images deeply impressed 

 on my mind; so true it is, "A thing of beauty is a joy for 

 ever." 



Having briefly noticed some of our smaller handsome local 

 and rarer ferns, I will now say a few words respecting the 

 bigger ones — the giants of the fern order — although many of 

 them are generally very commonly distributed throughout the 

 colony, and more particularly in the wooded districts. 



Come on then, my hearers ! Come with me into a secluded 

 calm and quiet dell, in a deep-shaded forest, far away from the 

 haunts of man ! Let us go to a sacred spot well known to me, 

 and still remaining free from the incursions of the ruthless in- 

 vader, both quadruped and biped ! May such concealment 

 long continue ! 



Here, at the level bottom of this dell, down whose stony 

 sides we have been scrambling, through which a small purl- 

 ing streamlet of clear water winds its tortuous way, stand a 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xx., p. 218. 



