Colenso. — On the Ferns of New Zealand. 227 



manner, enchant the eye of the observer with a most elegant 

 circle of delicate and ever-living green " (loc. cit.). 



IV. Those two ferns (the New Zealand South Island and 

 Tasmanian ones) are very dissimilar at first sight from our 

 Hawke's Bay, North Island, one ; but on close investigation 

 they are not, I think, specifically distinct. It is, however, a 

 pity that we have only drawings of such small dwarfish speci- 

 mens to represent our tall, fine, and graceful fern — certainly the 

 most handsome of the genus inhabiting New Zealand. 



Genus 18. Asplenium, Linn. 



§ A. EUASPLENIUM. 



1. A. melanolepis, sp. nov. 



Plant small, tufted, erect, 10-15 fronds ; with numerous 

 small erect subulate black scales at extreme bases of stipites, 

 growing like a little fringed crown among them ; roots many, 

 rather short, wiry, chestnut-brown, hairy. Stipes £-3 inches 

 long, red-brown, glossy, rather slender (sometimes filiform), 

 brittle, sub-cylindrical, flattish on upper surface, narrowly 

 margined (also rhachis), with a few scattered weak brownish 

 scales near base. Fronds linear-lanceolate, pinnate, 4-7 incbes 

 long, 4-6 lines wide (at broadest part), flexuous, spreading, 

 green inclining to pale ; pinnae 20-30 pairs, small, 2-2^ lines 

 long, 1-1^ lines broad, decreasing gradually in size to apex, 

 terminal pinnae not confluent ; petiolate and distant throughout, 

 very distant and minute below, mostly opposite and sub-oppo- 

 site sometimes alternate, sub-coriaceous and opaque, margined, 

 margins slightly recurved ; generally of two principal forms on 

 a frond, (1) those below sub-orbicular-flabellate and rhomboidal, 

 their outer margins pretty regularly bluntly crenate, and their 

 upper and lower basal margins nearly equal ; (2) those above 

 sub-obovate-oblong and narrow-oblong, their sides very unequal, 

 the lower margin nearly straight and entire, the upper curved, 

 slightly and irregularly crenulate, and abruptly excised at base, 

 their tips truncate and crenate ; veins 3-nerved, flabellate in 

 lower pinnae ; in upper pinnae few, almost obsolete, with scarcely 

 a midrib ; tips very slightly clavate and not extending to mar- 

 gins. Sori near margin but irregular in position and in size, 

 form, and number, — 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 on a pinna, — sometimes a 

 single globose cluster (like Polypodium), and sometimes con- 

 fluent, filling the under-surface of a pinna; often the smaller 

 oblong pinnae contain the larger number of sori. Involucre 

 linear, narrow, white, persistent, margin entire. Scales subu- 

 late, 3 lines long, much acuminate, flexuous, with a thick 

 central black nerve and largely reticulated membranous mar- 

 gins ; cells large, their walls thick and black. 



