NOTES ON NEW ZEALAND PEENS. 371 



into my garden, but as it grows among large timber I have been 

 afraid of injm-ing its roots and killing it in moving. If the bush 

 were being cleared I should certainly try it, as the plant could but 

 die in either case. A. vestitum has usually a short stout stipes and 

 stout rachis, and the pinnae are of equal length for the greater part 

 of the length of the frond, giving it an oblong-lanceolate form. 

 The fronds are very numerous and densely foliaged. What we 

 regard as the sylvaticum form is simply a tufted plant with very 

 long thin stipes, thin rachis, and pinnae and pinnules farther 

 asunder. The last are also more distinctly stalled, so that the 

 whole frond is as it were loosely put together. There are very few 

 fronds, not more than half a dozen or so on a plant, and they are 

 almost deltoid in shape. We have other forms which approximate 

 to A. Richardi, and a very beautiful one with short stipes, almost 

 deltoid frond, and very numerous and closely-^Dlaced pinnse and 

 j)innules, the last being far more lanceolate in form than the other 

 kinds, and more deeply and finely serrated in the edges. A. oculatmn 

 I do not know with certainty. Your description seems to agree 

 with that of a plant which grows here, and is marked as " oculatum" 

 in the herbarium at the Colonial Museum ; yet Mr. Kirk maintains 

 that it is merely a form of A. Richardi (in which he is certainly 

 right), and he has a totally different soft-foliaged fern as " oculatum,'' 

 which agrees with a description in the Transactions of om- New 

 Zealand Institute. I have not been able to get a specimen of 

 Kirk's fern, which grows only in Wairarapa and some parts of the 

 Canterbury. The involucres have a large black disc and narrow 

 reddish margin, while ours have a small black disc and broad 

 white margin. A. cajyense is here almost always non-indusiate, 

 and the indusium, when it occurs, can scarcely be seen without a 

 magnifying glass. A. cystostegia only grows where it is covered 

 mth snow for several months each year. 



Nejyhrodium decompositum and N. velutinum are wrongly classed 

 among plants with wide-spreading rhizomes. The latter is a tufted 

 plant, never producing more than about half a dozen fronds at a 

 time ; and of the other we have at least two forms. The one has 

 scattered scales on the stipes, long white silky hairs on the rachis, 

 and a soft velvety frond of a light green colour. It has creeping 

 rhizomes, but they seldom spread more than a few inches, say a 

 foot, from the original root. The other is a tufted plant with 

 much narrower, harsher-textured, finely-divided foliage of a dark 

 green colour, and stipes and rachis sometimes greyish green and 

 perfectly smooth and glossy, and sometimes coated with dark brown 

 velvety down. The former, which is very scarce, while the other 

 abounds, is generally called var. glahcllum, but I fancy wrongly. 

 Of N. hisjndum we have also two forms. The one which most 

 nearly meets your description has stout rhizomes which spread 

 over spaces many yards square, and from which the fronds spring 

 generally in clusters. It has very stout and very hairy stipes and 

 rachis, and seldom exceeds fifteen inches in height. The stipes is 

 short. The other is a far larger plant, occasionally growing four 

 feet high, and is usually tufted, though in very large plants I have 



