■622 Transactions. — Botany. 



examination winch might suflice to chiss them as varieties of 

 those well-known and allied species. 



In line (and as it is very likely I may never again have 

 the opportunity of describing any more of our New Zealand 

 ferns), I would venture to repeat what I wrote last year 

 respecting the proper study of ferns, believing such to be abso- 

 lutely necessary in arriving at a just conclusion concerning 

 them : "I have long been of opinion that greater scrutiny 

 should be given by pteridologists (not mere amateurs, fern- 

 growers, and collectors) to the scales of ferns — their form, 

 consistency, venation, colour, and structure. Nature is ever 

 great, true, and constant in what men term small things." 

 (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxvi., p. 400.) In so saying I merely 

 re-echo the opinions and words of two of our most eminent 

 British pteridologists — Sir W. J. Hooker, formerly the director 

 of the Eoyal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and Mr. John Smith, 

 for forty years his able and intelligent curator of ferns there, 

 and also author of several useful works on ferns. And with 

 these words of Sir William Hooker's (used in describing one 

 of our New Zealand ferns — then, as Poly-podium attenuatuin, 

 but now, and correctly, as P. cunninghaviii) I close my 

 paper : " The nature of the venation is of the highest import- 

 ance in the study of the ferns — sometimes for discriminating 

 species, and not unfrequently for distinguishing genera " 

 (" Icones Plantarum," tab. CDix.). 



Art. LXII. — Note on a Branclied Specimen of a Tree-fern 



(Hemitelia smithii). 



By A. Hamilton. 



[Read before the Otago Institute, 8th October, 1895.] 



A SPECIMEN of what must have been a beautiful natural 

 curiosity has recently been brought to the Otago University 

 Museum, and, as the number of branches or divisions of the 

 trunk is very unusual, I have been permitted by the director, 

 Dr. Parker, to submit a short note on the specimen, with a 

 diagram showing the different divisions. 



The fern originally grew, I believe, on the slopes of Mount 

 Cargill, and, after a long life of beauty, fell a victim to the axe 

 of the settler in the progress of settlement, as did one of even 

 greater dimensions about ten years ago.''' It is to be hoped 



* " On a Remarkable Branching Specimen of Hemitelia smithii. 

 By John Buchanan, P.L.S." (Trans. N.Z. Inst., voh xix., p. 217, 

 pis. xii. and xiii.) 



