Asperella. | GRAMINE. 925 
leafy, 10-30 in. high. Leaves 3-9 in. long, ;,—}in. broad, flat or 
involute, striate, smooth or nearly so; sheaths smooth or puberu- 
lous ; ligules short. Spike 3-6 in. long, slender, of 15-30 spikelets ; 
rhachis flat, flexuous, scabrid on the edges. Spikelets pale-green, 
about + in. long, 1-2-flowered. Two outer glumes always present, 
_ reduced to linear-subulate bristles about three-quarters the length 
of the lower flowering glume, subequal, erect, channelled, scabrid. 
Flowering glumes lanceolate, faintly 3-5-nerved, rounded on” the 
back, quite smooth, unequally 3-toothed at the apex, the middle 
tooth produced into a short scabrid mucro. Palea rather shorter 
than the glume, keels smooth or minutely ciliolate. 
South Isnanp: Nelson— Clarence Valley, Kirk! Otago— Matukituki 
Valley, Catlin’s River, Petrie! Waikawa, H. J. Matthews ! Sea-level to 
2000 ft. 
Very close to A. gracilis, from which it differs in the two outer glumes 
being always present, and in the flowering glumes being smooth, obscurely 
nerved, and truncately 3-toothed at the apex, the middle tooth being produced 
into a short stout mucro. Further observation is required to prove the con- 
stancy of these characters. 
Orper XCIII. FILICES. 
Perennial or very rarely annual plants, usually herbaceous but 
sometimes arboreous (tree-ferns). Stems generally reduced to a 
rhizome, which may be short and tufted, or long and creeping or 
climbing ; or, in the case of tree-ferns, produced into an erect 
caudex or trunk. Leaves (fronds) either crowded at the end of 
the rhizome or distantly placed along it, continuous with the 
rhizome or jointed to it, sometimes simple and entire, but usually 
more or less deeply pinnately lobed or divided and frequently re- 
peatedly so, more rarely dichotomously branched ; always circinate 
in vernation with the exception of the Ophioglossace@. Spore-cases 
or sporangia usually arranged in groups (so7z7) on the under-surface 
or margins of the fertile fronds, which are either similar to the 
sterile fronds, or narrower and more contracted, the divisions 
sometimes becoming linear and spike-like. Sori very various in 
size and shape and position, naked or covered when young by the 
recurved margin of the frond or by a special involucre (zndusiwm). 
Sporangia many or rarely few in a sorus, often mixed with jointed 
hairs or scales, stalked or sessile, usually furnished with a com- 
plete or incomplete ring or annulus, dehiscing by a transverse or 
vertical slit, free or rarely coherent into a compound sporangium 
(synangium). Spores numerous, bilateral or tetrahedral. 
Ferns constitute one of the largest and most generally distributed of the 
families of plants, and are found in all quarters of the world, although most 
abundant in moist climates. It is difficult to estimate the number of species, on 
account of the divergent views of authors, but they cannot be less than 3500. 
In the subjoined account of the New Zealand species I have adopted the 
