Gymnogramme. | FILICES. 1017 
Nort Isnanp: Auckland—Volcanic hills on the Auckland Isthmus, once 
common, now rare and apparently restricted o Mount Wellington and Mount 
Smart, Colenso, &e.; Mount Maunganui (near Tauranga), Mrs. Hetley! Hast 
Cape district, Bishop Williams. Hawke’s Bay—Scinde Island, Colenso! Rua- 
hine Mountains, H. Tryow! Wellington—Miramar, Buchanan! SourH ISLAND: 
Canterbury—Lyttelton Harbour, abundant, 7. H. Potts! Otago—Near Dun- 
edin, Purdie ; Upper Clutha, Petrie. Sea-level to 1500 ft. 
Also in south Europe, North and South Africa, Persia, India, Australia and 
Tasmania, and South America. 
25. GLEICHENTA, Smith. 
Rhizome long, creeping, rigid and wiry, often clothed with 
chaffy scales. Stipes tall, erect or scrambling, usually rather 
slender. Fronds once or several times dichotomously forked, 
usually with a terminal bud in the fork, the divisions often spread- 
ing in a horizontal plane, ultimate branches pinnately divided. 
Segments of the pinne rather small and broadly ovate or sub- 
orbicular, or larger and oblong to linear-lanceolate. Veins free. 
Sori dorsal, placed on the fork or at the tip of an exterior veinlet, 
of 2-12 sporangia. Indusium wanting. Sporangia sessile, splitting 
vertically, completely surrounded by a broad transverse ring. 
Species about 26, chiefly tropical, but one species extends as far north as 
Japan, and 5 are found in New Zealand. Of these, 1 is widely spread in hot 
countries, 3 extend to Australia and New Caledonia, the remaining 1 is endemic. 
* EUGLEICHENIA. Segments of the pinne small, suborbicular. Sori 
solitary at the avex of a veinlet. 
Segments of the pinne flat or slightly recurved. Sporangia 
2-4, near the upper inner angle ot on aye 
Segments of the pinne with their margins incurved almost 
to the rhachis, hence pouch-shaped. Sporangia usually2 2. G. dicarpa. 
1. G. circinata. 
** MERTENSIA. Segments of the pinne linear or linear-oblong, much larger 
than in the previous section. Sori near the middle or at the fork of a 
veinlet. 
+ No accessory pinne at the base of the lower forks of the frond. 
Fronds umbrella-shaped, rigid and coriaceous. Segments 
of the pinnz entire, glaucous beneath. Sporangia 2-5 3. G.Cunninghamit. 
Fronds fan-shaped, submembranous. Segments of the 
pinne serrulate, green on both surfaces. Sporangia 3-5 4. G. flabellata. 
++ A pair of spreading or deflexed accessory pinne at the base of the 
lower forks of the frond. 
Fronds repeatedly dichotomous, the ultimate branches 
ending in a pair of pinne 3-12in. long. Pinnules 
lanceolate, obtuse, glaucous beneath. Sporangia 6-12 5. G. dichotoma. 
1. G. circinata, Swartz, Syn. Fil. 165, 394.—Very variable in 
size and mode of growth, sometimes stiff, erect, 1-3 ft. high ; some- 
times weak and scrambling among other vegetation and attaining a 
length of 3-5 ft. or more. Rhizome long, slender, wiry, often much 
