﻿98 Dixon: New and rare Australasian 



have compared Mitten's specimens with Hooker's type of M. pro- 

 repens (Dusky Bay, New Zealand, A. Menzies yo), and I have no 

 doubt that some of these differences are illusory. Mitten, I think, 

 and others who have studied Menzies' plant do not make allowance 

 for the fact that it is as a whole a somewhat starved form ; conse- 

 quently the leaves are as a rule very short and in proportion wide — 

 more oblong and less ligulate — and as a natural consequence very 

 little crisped or twisted when dry. This latter feature has led to M. 

 prorepens being contrasted by authors with other plants showing 

 a more highly flexuose, more spirally twisted condition in the dry 

 state. The position of the leaves when dry is in Macromitrium 

 no doubt a highly important character; but it may be over- 

 strained. The leaves in M. prorepens and this group of species 

 are normally somewhat spirally twisted when dry, and always then 

 more or less strongly circinate-incurved at the apex; where the 

 branches are short and densely foliate the twisting is more marked 

 and the leaves less crisped ; where the branches are more elongate 

 and the leaves somewhat less crowded they are less spirally 

 contorted and the apical incurvation is more noticeable and more 

 pronounced ; these two forms may often be observed more or less dis- 

 tinctly on the same plant. On the type specimen of M. prorepens 

 the leaves are on most of the branches so short that in the dry state 

 they are scarcely more than appressed to the stem; they could 

 not curl if they tried ; and to make this a specific character is very 

 much to deny the family resemblance of a convict to other mem- 

 bers of his family on the ground that their hair curled while his 

 did not! That this close, short, non-twisting foliation is not the 

 normal character of M. prorepens is proved by the fact that here 

 and there a better developed branch shows the leaves longer, more 

 ligulate, incurved at the apices when dry and slightly twisted. 

 In the Handbook of The New Zealand Flora it is suggested 

 that the cells are "papillose" in M. erosulum, "scarcely 

 papillose" in M. prorepens, but this is in no way borne out by 

 the specimens; it is in fact the papillae on the surface of the cells 

 in M. prorepens that for the most part produce the obscurity 

 which is a character of the species. 



Several indeed of the specimens at Kew of M. erosulum 

 Mitt., determined by Mitten himself, are quite identical with M. 



