Colenso. — Newly '-discovered Indigenous Plants. 287 



Hab. On the earth at water's edge, in a deep, narrow, and 

 dark glen (in which the sun never shines) ; forest, near Mata- 

 mau, County of Waipawa (barren) ; 1883 : and also in a swamp, 

 in dense forest near Norsewood, same county (in fruit) ; 1885 : 

 W.C. 



Obs. I. This species, though allied to P. phyllanthus, Mitt., 

 differs pretty considerably from that plant, and that in several 

 particulars — i.e., from its description as given in " Flora N.Z.," 

 and in the " Handbook Fl. N.Z.," and from the drawings and 

 dissections of that plant, with description, as originally given by 

 Sir W. J. Hooker in his " Musci Exotici." There is, however, 

 another and similar plant, (discovered here in New Zealand by 

 myself, and fully described by Hook. fil. and Taylor, in the 

 " London Journal of Botany," 1844, as Diplolcena cladorhizans ; 

 and afterwards described in the "Synopsis Hepaticarum " as 

 Blt/ttia cladorhizans,) to which this present one is very much more 

 closely allied. But Mitten, in those two works on New Zealand 

 Botany above named, has subsequently united those two plants 

 (formerly " 2 species and 2 genera") as being but one species : 

 to this, however, I cannot agree. And it is worthy of notice 

 that both Sir J. D. Hooker and Dr. Taylor, who well knew 

 those two plants and published them, had considered them to be 

 very distinct ; although, from what they say, they evidently had 

 not seen Diplolama cladorhizans bearing perfect fruit : moreover, 

 those able cryptogamists, the authors of the " Synopsis Hepati- 

 carum," while disagreeing as to their being two genera, made two 

 distinct species of them. For my own part, I think that Mitten 

 has united two plants under his Podomitrium phyllanthus (I.e.), " 

 which, by his own showing there, might very easily be done. 

 But be that as it may, of one thing I am pretty sure, that this 

 plant I have now described in this paper is a very different one 

 from that originally discovered in New Zealand (Dusky Bay) by 

 Dr. Menzies, in 1791, and published by Sir W. J. Hooker in his 

 " Musci Exotici" as Jungermannia (Podomitrium) phyllanthus. 



Obs. II. This little novelty has caused me no little labour 

 and research ; for from my first detecting it in its darkish home 

 (a deep rift in the earth at the head of a low forest gulley 

 between two mountain spurs, a place, too, very dangerous of 

 access, or, rather, to get out from, owing to its perpendicular 

 and crumbling sides and nothing serviceable to lay hold of), I. 

 believed it to be something new ; but it was barren, and not 

 unlike other and known small frondose Hepatica, ; subsequently 

 I sought flowering specimens in that spot but failed. I was 

 much pleased in again unexpectedly meeting with it in a new 

 locality, and beginning to show fruit ! I brought a good sized 

 portion carefully away, and in about a month it became fully 

 developed. 



