448 Transactions. — Botany. 



or less horizontally. In February, 1892, I found, in a patch of 

 bush behind Waikanae, a number of plants of Nephrodium 

 glabclluni, which had unmistakably assumed the creeping 

 habit of growth ; and I thought that they, or the original 

 plant from which they sprang, might have been hybridized 

 with Nephroclium decompositum, which is plentiful in the 

 vicinity. Last week, again, in removing the dead fronds from a 

 plant of Nephrodium velutinum, I found that it had travelled 

 several inches from where it was planted, and had nearly 

 reached the side of the pot. Alsophila colensoi and Dicksonia 

 lanata seem unquestionably also occasionally to assume erect 

 habits of growth, instead of their ordinary creeping one, 

 though I myself have never met with any examples which 

 did so. 



On careful consideration, it seems to me that the ap- 

 parently divergent habits of growth in ferns may possibly 

 be merely modifications of a common habit, rather than 

 really different ones. All ferns on emerging from the pro- 

 thallus stage produce their first fronds from a bud, which 

 rapidly assumes the form of a short, erect rhizome. Some 

 seem to retain this habit all through their lives, or only pro- 

 duce lateral crowns around the main one on attaining age. 

 In other cases the erect rhizome becomes elongated into a 

 caudex, sometimes of considerable height, with the crown of 

 fronds on top. Some of these tree-ferns, particularly in 

 certain localities, often become branched, and produce several 

 crowns. The late Mr. J. Buchanan some years ago reported 

 one near Dunedin with no less than sixteen branches and 

 crowms. Others again, and particularly Dicksonia squarrosa, 

 often have lateral crowns growing out from the sides of their 

 caudices. I used to think that these were separate plants 

 which had grown from spores that had lodged in the fibrous 

 outer surface of the caudex ; but I am now more disposed 

 to think that they are actual lateral growths from the 

 parent plant. Other ferns, even from what may be called 

 their seedling stage, produce lateral creeping rhizomes, 

 which throw out secondary rhizomes, and by thus branch- 

 ing soon overspread considerable areas. It seems to me, 

 therefore, that the ramifying habit of. growth is really the 

 normal one, though it, in many species, only becomes de- 

 veloped at a late stage in the life of the plant — that, in fact, 

 the branches and lateral crowns are merely developments of 

 the creeping habit, which have been produced at too late a 

 stage and too high above the ground for actual creeping to 

 occur. It is a point that is worth study by those w r ho have 

 time and opportunity, and therefore I mention it. In this 

 case the separate solitary fronds which grow from creeping 

 rhizomes at short distances merely represent those which 



