24 FLORA OE NEW ZEALAND. [Fihces. 



The true C. tenuifolia is a very widely diffused Fern, throughout the warmest parts of Asia, in Australia, Tas- 

 mania, and the Malay Archipelago. The Australian and New Zealand plants are smaller, and have often a more 

 contracted frond than the Indian, and have hence been made into another species (G. Sieberh). The immense suite 

 of specimens preserved in the Hookerian Herbarium, however, shows that all are one and the same plant, to which 

 the C. Preissiana of Kunze (who quotes Lesson's New Zealand specimens as identical with the Swan River ones, 

 which he describes, and which I have examined) must be added. The latter has been distinguished by the presence 

 of a few hairs towards the base of the stipes, a character I find present and absent in different fronds of the same 

 specimen. I have quoted the figure of 0. Sieberi (in Hook. Sp. Fil.) as exactly resembling the New Zealand plant, 

 and not that of 0. tenuifolia, which is taken from the Indian form of the species.— Rhizome very stout, thickly 

 covered with silky long scales. Stipes tufted, stout, glossy, red-brown, quite glabrous, or with a few spreading 

 hairs towards the base. Fronds 3 inches to a span or a foot long, narrow-ovate or oblong, rarely deltoid, much 

 contracted from the erect phrase, tripinnate. Pinna distant ; secondary scattered. Pinnules perfectly glabrous, 

 few and small, coriaceous, 3-5 lines long, yellow-green, linear-oblong, blunt, crenate; their margins very revolute, 

 lobed or pinnatifid ; margins of all the lobes reflexed, forming a continuous coriaceous crenate involucre, with 

 membranous edges. Capsules very numerous and prominent, often covering the pinnules. Raehis red-brown, 

 shining, quite smooth.— This is anything but a handsome Fern in colour, form, or texture, always looking starved 

 and dry ; the small, narrow, scattered pinnules, with revolute margins, bearing a small proportion in size to the stout 

 stipes and raehis. The pinnules often appear as a mass of fructification. In some specimens the primary pinna? 

 are reduced to small crumpled lobes not i an inch long. 



Gen. XIII. PTEPJS, Br. 



Sori lineares, marginales, continui ; capsuHs sinu involucri insertis. Involucrum marginale, conti- 

 nuum, scariosum, intus libemm. — Br. Prodr. 



One of the largest and most extensively distributed groups of Ferns, which has been divided (on so many 

 and various grounds) into so many genera, that, were they adopted here, one might perhaps be found for each New 

 Zealand species. Such dismemberments of genera, though extremely useful to the skilled botanist when working 

 upon a multitude of species from all parts of the world, are, when not absolutely necessary, highly inconvenient for 

 local floras, rendering these impracticable to the student. I have therefore, in this case, adopted the old genus, 

 as defined in Brown's ' Prodromus Flora} Australis,' and introduced as sections those of the new that are natural. 

 Pteris, thus characterized, contains all those Ferns whose sori run continuously, or nearly so, along the edge of the 

 whole'pimiule, and are covered with a continuous scarious or membranous involucre, formed of the incurved edge 

 of the frond. It is distinguished from Cheilanthes only by the greater continuity and regular outline of the 

 involucre. (Name from Tnepvt;, a plume.) 



§ 1. Platyloma, J. Sm. — Frond pinnate (in the New Zealand species) ; veins forked, free. 



1. Pteris (Platyloma) falcata, Br.; frondibus rigidis ercctis lmearibus pinnatis, pinnis lineari-oblongis 

 lanceolatisve acutis mucronatisve falcatis glabris basi obliquis obtusis nunc margine superiore basi auricu- 

 lato, stipite rachique squamato.— Br. Prodr. P. seticaulis, Hook. Ic. Plant, t. 207. 



Hab. Northern Island : Auckland, Sinclair. (Cultivated at Kew.) 



A native of the Peninsula of India, Australia, and Tasmania.— Fronds erect, coriaceous, rigid, tufted, 1-3 feet 

 high, narrow linear, pinnate. Pinna quite glabrous, linear-lanceolate or oblong, f-l| inch long (in Australian spe- 

 cimens H inches), shortly stipitate, falcate, acute or mucronate, oblique at the base, which is very broadly cuneate ; 

 the upper margin sometimes produced into a lobe or gibbous. Sori broad, continuous all round the pinnule, 

 partially covered with a very narrow involucre. Raehis stout, densely villous, and covered with spreading scaly 

 hairs. Stipes black, hispid. 



2. Pteris (Platyloma) rotundifolia, Porst. ; frondibus rigidis decumbentibus v. suberectis linearibus 



