PLATii 239.— PTEKib SOABEKLLA. 



Family FILIGES.J [Genus FTEKIS, Linn. 



Pteris scaberula, A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zei. a2, t. 11 ; Cheasem. Man. N.Z. Fl. 971. 



The discovery ol' Ftens scaOerula dates liv>m Look's iiist visit to New Zea- 

 land in 1769-70, when it was gatliered by Banks and Solander in Admiralty 

 Bay, immediately tto the east of D'Urville Island, in Cook Strait. It was well 

 described and hgured by Solander, but as liis name was never actually pub- 

 lished there is no object in quoting it here. In 1820 it was collected by Allan 

 Cunningham in "dry woods at Wliangaroa," and in the following year it was 

 obtained by D'Urville, of the French exploring-shiij " L'Astrolabe," in some 

 locality not specified. The collections made during this voyage were worked 

 up by the eminent French botanist A. Richard in his " Flore de la Nouvelle 

 Zelande," published in 1832, when our plant was described and hgured under 

 the name it still bears. 



Since the time of Cunningham and D'Urville Pteris scaberula has been 

 collected in almost all the forest districts of the Dominion, from the North 

 Cape to Foveaux Strait and Stewart Island. It is also not uncommon on the 

 Chatham Islands. In fact, it can be roundly said that there is no forest of 

 any size, at a moderate elevation, where it does not occur. Under natural 

 conditions it is a plant of dry banks and old land-slides, or of open sunny 

 glades in the forest. But in the North Island it has spread of late years to a 

 great extent along the sides of road-cuttings or in abandoned bush-clearings. 

 When the Waitakarei district, near Auckland, was opened up for settlement 

 many years ago every side-cutting along the roads was at once occupied by 

 young plants of Pteris scaberula, although the species was by no means gene- 

 rally distributed prior to the construction of the roads. The increase of certain 

 ferns, or change in their habitats, due to man's interference with the original 

 vegetation, has not had the attention given to it that it deserves. Putting 

 on one side the well-known instance of the sj^read of Pteris esculenta, it is 

 noticeable how readily Cyathea medullaris takes possession of steep slopes and 

 gullies in partially denuded timber areas. Hypolepis tenuifolia often in- 

 creases in abandoned bush-clearings, or by neglected bush-roads. Doodia 

 media is becoming quite a common plant at the base of white-thorn hedges 

 near Auckland. And Poly podium serpens may be seen in quantity on the rough 

 stone walls so often built on the lava-streams of the Auckland Isthmus, and 

 also grows in abundance on the oaks and pines and other trees of our plan- 

 tations. 



Pteris scaberula is often placed in the genus Pcesia, a small group of seven 

 species split off from the genus Pteris as understood by Sir ^^■. J. Hooker in 

 the " Species Filicuin," and by Mr. Baker in the " Synopsis Filicum." But 

 the classification of ferns is admittedly in a very unsettled state, and in this 

 and other instances I prefer to wait until pteridologists generally have arrived 

 at an agreement as to the limits and characters of the various genera consti- 

 tuting the family. 



Plate 239. Pteris scaberula, drawn from specimens collected at Hunua, near Auckland. Fig. 1, 

 portion of rhizome,Jwith scales ; 2. one of the scales or hairs ; 3, pinnule ; 4, barren segment ; 5, young 

 fertile segment, the indiisium covering the sorus ; 6, mature fertile segment ; 7, section of fertile 

 segment, with sorus and indusium ; 8, a single sporangium. (All enlarged.) 



