252 Transactions. — Botany. 



glabrous or puberulous. Leaves close-set or distant, erecto- 

 patent, jLj - J inch long, linear-oblong or linear-obovate, acute 

 or obtuse, narrowed into short petioles or sessile, veiuless, 

 glabrous, ormarginS and both surfaces sprinkled over with short 

 white hairs. Flowers solitary, terminating short erect branch- 

 lets. Males : ^-^ inch long. True calyx wanting ; but the 

 usual calycine involucels investing the base of the corolla. 

 Corolla tubular at the base, campanulate above, 4-lobed. 

 Females: smaller, 32^ inch long. Calyx-limb irregularly toothed. 

 Corolla short, broadly tubular, 4-lobed to below the middle. 

 Drupe globose, 1 inch diameter ; red in Mount Arthur speci- 

 mens, but blueish in Otago, according to Mr. Petrie. 



Apparently a very distinct little plant, at once separated 

 from C. repens by the shape of the male corolla. 



Art. XXXII. — A few Observations on the Tree - Ferns of Xew 

 Zealand ; iiith particular Reference to their peculiar Epi- 

 phijtes, their Habit, and their manner of Growth. 



By W. CoLENso, F.E.S., F.L.S., etc. 



[Read before the Haivke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 9</i August, 1886.] 



Plate XIX. • 



I. — Geneeal, or Common. 



Not being acquainted with the living botany of the South 

 Island, my remarks will be necessarily confined to the tree- 

 ferns of the North Island : at the same time I think that many 

 of those plants are nearly as common there as they are here. 



Tree-ferns are general throughout the North Island, in 

 forests, on the edges of woods, and on the banks of streams ; 

 they are found in dry hilly woods as well as in the low wet ones, 

 but are more numerous and gregarious in the latter. Mostly 

 growing singly, scattered among the trees of the forest; not 

 unfrcqucntly, however, in small clumps, especially on low 

 alluvial flats or tongues of land in the woods bounded on two 

 sides by watercourses ; and, more rarely, in tolerably large and 

 continuous groves in wet situations between hills, in forests. 



The number of species at present known of tree-ferns is 

 ll."-'-' These are classed under 4 genera, viz., Cyathea, llcniitelia, 

 Dicksonia, and Ahnphila. Of those 4 genera, Cyathea has 6, 

 and Dicksonia 4, species ; Uemitelia possesses 2, and Alscphila 



' Of these, 7 are described iu the " Handbook. Flora of New Zealand,'' 

 and " Synopsis Filicum ;" and 4 (bhice dibcovcrcd) in " TrauB. N.Z. lust.," 

 vols, zi., zv., and xviii. 



