274 Transactions. — Botany. 



Class III. — Ceyptogamia. 



Oedek I.— FILICES. 



Genus 16.* Lomaria, Willdeuow. 

 1. L. intermedia, sp. nov. 



Plant small; caudex -l-f inch, indistinct, formed of the 

 bases of old stipites and wiry roots ; tufted, few fronded ; fronds 

 sub-erect and spreading, pinnate; stipes rather slender, blackish- 

 brown, glabrous, succulent, somewhat brittle, deeply channelled 

 above, as also is the rhachis. Sterile fronds, 7-8 inches long, 

 (including short stipe, f inch,) 1 inch wide, linear-lanceolate, 

 rachis, fiexuous, green; pinnae 16-18 pairs, alternate, distant, 

 membranous, light-green, glossy, thickly dotted beneath with 

 minute red scales, oblong, sides straight, very obtuse, margins 

 crenate, adnate, the lower base much excised and sub-truncate, 

 the upper base slightly sub-auriculate or produced, but not 

 extended on rhachis, 3-4 lobes at top conflueut, the uppermost 

 lobe broadly ovate, obtuse ; the lowermost 5-6 pairs of pinnae 

 small, sub-orbicular, and sometimes opposite; veins 4-5-jugate, 

 obscure, the lower forked, upper simple, extending nearly to 

 margin, tips clavate, the lowest basal vein always 3-branched, 

 and proceeding from the rhachis, not the midrib : fertile fronds 

 much longer and more slender, 9-11 inches (including stipe, 2 

 inches), pinns 16-18 pairs, alternate, very distant, sub ^ inch, 

 narrow linear almost filiform, 6-7 lines long, ^ line wide, 

 obtuse, margins sub-crenulate, presenting a regular knobbed 

 or beaded appearance, arising from the clavate tips of the veins, 

 adnate, slightly decurreut, ultimate lobe long and very narrow, 

 the lowermost segments exceedingly small ; rich red-brown ; 

 margin of indusium finely lacerate, as obtains in L.jilif or mis, 

 A. Cunn. 



Hab. Scattered in damp shaded localities, Seventy-Mile 

 Bush, County of Waipawa ; 1880-86 : W.C. In forests near 

 Palmerston, County of Manawatu ; 1886: Mr. A. Hamilton. 



Obs. I. This species is allied to several of our smaller 

 LomaricB, — as, L. lanceulata, Spr., L. jmmila, Kaoul, L. mem- 

 branacea, and L. oliguneuron, Col.,f — but more closely to L. 

 meiiibranacca, from which species it differs in its larger size, its 

 crenate (not " dentato-scrrate ") sterile pinnte, which are also 

 of a different shape, more obtuse and distant, excised at their 

 lower and produced at their upper bases, much fewer veined, 

 and minutely dotted with red scales beneath ; while the fertile 



* The numbers attached to the orders and genera in" this paper are 

 those of them in the " Handbook Flora of N.Z." 

 t Vide " Trans, N.Z. Inst.," vol. xvi., p. 346, 



