868 NOTES ON NEW ZEALAND FERNS. 



and its pinnules are olive-green, and in young plants are of 

 medium size and rather narrowly triangular, though in large fronds 

 they become rounder and very small. The stipes is often black, or 

 nearly so, and rough or prickly, though the rachises are smooth 

 and rusty coloured above. A. diaphanicm has blackish green foliage, 

 and A. ictkiopicum light delicate green : the latter sometimes 

 approximates closely to A. cuneatum. A. formosum abounds all 

 along the western bases of the Tararna, Euahine, and Kaweka 

 ranges ; in fact the country for a distance of seventy miles long, by 

 nearly twenty miles broad, is full of it : and along the banks of 

 the Waikanae, Otaki, Ohan, Waikawa, Manawatu, Orona, and 

 Pohanguia rivers, it forms dense thickets, like the bracken at home. 

 It often grows five feet or more in height, and no fronds less than 

 from two and a half to three feet high are soriferous. Its colour 

 is bluish green, with prickly or hahy black stipes and rachises. 

 Hypolepis distaiis is very scarce in its true type, which, by the way, 

 differs from Atlujrimn Jilix-fccmina in having a widely creeping 

 rhizome ; but it appears to pass into Pohjpodmm rugulosiim, so that 

 it is almost impossible to discriminate between them, and one 

 actually sees more fronds of the latter than of the former labelled 

 as ** if. distans " in collections, and even persons who make a 

 business of collecting ferns, for sale as plants or specimens, aj)pear 

 to supply the wrong one in this case more often than not. The 

 true plant is very hard to transplant. 



Of Cheilantlies we have three types in the colony, but I believe 

 they are only forms of the same plant. First, there is the form 

 known here ?is '' Sieberi" (though it and the next differ from the 

 descriptions of them) which has a long stipes, and from five to 

 fifteen pairs of nearly equal- sized broad foliaged pinna (when sori- 

 ferous the foliage of course looks narrower from the lobes cm-ling 

 over), the whole forming an oblong frond suddenly narrowed at the 

 a]3ex. The stipes and rachis are reddish brown. Secondly, there 

 is what we call C. tenuifolia, which has a long deltoid frond and 

 much more minute foliage, with black stipes and rachis ; and, 

 thirdly, there is the large sort which grows north of Auckland, and 

 is described by Colenso, and which appears to be between the two, 

 though larger than either. The first grows fully two feet high ; 

 the second seldom, if ever, exceeds a foot ; while the thu'd, by 

 Colenso's description, is over four feet high, and I have seen 

 specimens more than three feet myself. The difference between 

 them is, however, no greater than occurs in many of our ferns in 

 different localities, without any one for a moment di-eaming of 

 classing the ferns separately. Lomanaprocera, Asplcnium bulbiferwn, 

 and A. jlaccidum would in fact yield each a dozen more widely 

 different types in this colony alone. 



Pelhca rotundi folia and P. falcata, again, are gradually being 

 admitted to be merely forms of the same plant. Pteris trennda is 

 a tufted plant, and has a strong aromatic odour (particularly the 

 Ki)u/iana type) when bruised or broken. In fact in some of our 

 deep gulleys the scent is often quite unpleasantly strong on a hot 

 day, even when the plants are uninjured. P. scabenda varies much 



