372 NOTES ON NEW ZEALAND FERNS. 



foiiud instances of the outer fronds springing from runners an inch 

 or so in length. It however never runs farther. The stipes is 

 longer and slighter in proportion than that of the other khid, and 

 far less hairy — indeed, sometimes scarcely at all so ; but the foliage 

 of both plants is precisely the same, even to being similarly 

 shaded with a sort of striped pattern of alternate light and 

 dark green. 



In our Nephrolepis the fronds are very frequently narrowed about 

 two-thh'ds of the way up, and the sori are produced all over the 

 under-surface, instead of only on the upper portion as in the 

 Australian plant. Ours, too, has the white dots on the upper 

 surface far more strongly developed than I have ever seen them in 

 the other. 



Of Polypodium j^^f^^ctatum we have again two forms at least. 

 One has a yellow viscous stipes and rachis and a broad fi'ond, and 

 is often mistaken for Hj/polepis tenuifoHa. The other has dark 

 brown velvet}' stipes and rachis, which I have never found viscous. 

 Its frond is long and narrow, and it is constantly confounded with 

 H. distans. It is so hard to distinguish between both the above 

 and the corresponding Hijpolepis, that I should not be at all 

 surprised to find them classed as merely non-indusiate forms of 

 these ferns, as P. syhaticum has been of A. acideatum. I fancy 

 both the above would be included in var. rugidosum ; and some 

 persons say that there is no true P. punctatum in the colony. I 

 have, however, a fi-ond which was sent me from Auckland which I 

 think is it, for though in other respects greatly resembling the first 

 form I have described, its sori are much farther from the margin, 

 and no larger than those of P. pennigerum. Our P. australe, the 

 old Grammitis australis, is a tufted plant, not a creeping one ; and 

 P. peimigeriim has a strong caudex often four feet high. P. tmellum 

 has the edges of its innnse entu-e till the sori are developed, when 

 a lobe forms round each, or perhaps it would be more correct to 

 say that the interval between them becomes indented, as the width 

 over all does not increase. P. Cunninghami is certainly usually 

 tufted, though I am uot sure whether the tufts may not grow from 

 creeping rhizomes, as the fern covers the whole surface of the 

 tree trunks. The Polypodium, which you pro^Dose to call by the 

 name of novcB-zelcmdia, has been found lately by Mr. Cheeseman, 

 of Auckland, in two other places about fifty miles north of w^here 

 my son first saw it. 



Our Gymnogramme leptophylla, though a small form of the 

 plant, has a bulbous or tuberous root, and is bi- or triennial, dying 

 down towards the end of summer and coming u]d again in the 

 winter or early spring. 



Schizaa bifida has baiTen as well as fertile fronds. The barren 

 ones are from three to five inches long by two to three inches wide, 

 and several times dichotomously divided. The fertile ones are once 

 or twice divided only and from eight to fifteen inches long. In the 

 barren fronds the branches spread widely asunder, but in the fertile 

 ones they grow almost parallel. 



I fancy that the first eight Ophioglossa in your list are all forms 



