Hemitelia. | FILICES. 951 
very variable in size and shape, usually a half cup-shaped or semi- 
circular scale on the lower side of the sorus, sometimes small and 
indistinct, often deciduous. Sporangia numerous, sessile or nearly 
so, bursting transversely ; ring somewhat oblique, complete. 
A tropical or subtropical genus, containing about 45 species, 30 of which 
are natives of America, the remainder scattered through the warm regions of 
the Old World. It only differs from Cyathea in the small one-sided involucre, 
and several species might be referred to either genus. The single species found 
in New Zealand is endemic. 
1. H. Smithii, Hook. ex Hook. and Baker Syn. Fil. 31.—Trunk 
6-25ft. high, about 9in. diam., coated with fibrous aerial rootlets 
below, clothed towards the top with the pendulous withered 
rhachides of the old fronds. Fronds numerous, horizontally spread- 
ing, 5-9 ft. long, bipinnate, lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, acute 
but hardly acuminate, thin and membranous, bright fresh-green. 
Supes slender, clothed at the base with a dense brush of long 
shining chestnut-brown subulate-lanceolate scales, slightly asperous 
beneath ; rhachis pale yellow-green, almost glabrous when old,’ 
when young clothed with strigillose hairs above, and with lax 
deciduous scales beneath. Primary pinne 9-ldin. long, 3-4 in. 
broad, linear-oblong,, acuminate; costz clothed with strigillose 
hairs above, paleaceous or glabrous beneath; secondary pinne 
13-2$in. long, pinnatifid above, pinnate at the base. Segments 
linear-oblong, acute, slightly faleate, coarsely serrate. Sori copious, 
on the fork of the veins. Indusium hemispherical, on the costal 
side of the sorus, variable in size, sometimes almost wrapping 
round the sorus at the base.—Thoms. N.Z. Ferns, 29; Field, N.Z. 
Ferns, 46, t.9,f.5. Cyathea Smithii, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. ii. 8, 
t. 72; Handb. N.Z. Fui.350. C. stellulata, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. 
Xviil. (1886) 222. 
Var. microphylla, Cheesem.—Fronds fewer in number, soft, delicately 
membranous, pale grass-green ; rhachis densely strigillose above, paleaceous 
beneath. Primary pinne rather narrower and more acuminate. Segments 
smaller, entire or biuntly crenulate towards the tip.—H. microphylla, Col. in 
Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxvii. (1895) 399. 
NortH aNnpD SoutH IsLANDS, STEWART IsLAnD: Abundant in damp hilly 
forests from Kaitaia (Mongonui County) southwards. Sea-level to 2000 t. 
AUCKLAND Istanps: Ncrman Inlet, rare, W. Joss ex Cockayne ! 
A very beautiful species, with the most tender fronds of any New Zealand 
tree-fern. The trunk is not uncommonly forked or branched above; and Mr. 
Buchanan (Trans. N.Z. Inst. xix., 217) describes and figures a remarkable 
specimen which had no less than 16 well-developed branches. H. Smithii and 
Dicksonia squwarrosa are plentiful through the whole of the lowland districts of 
Stewart Island, in S. lat. 47° 204, and the former species has recently been found 
in the Auckland Islands (S. lat. 50° 40’), the extreme southern limit of 
arborescent ferns. 
