50 



FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND. 



[Filices. 



species being confined within narrow limits. I confidently affirm, that were I to show the authors of many of the 

 so-called species of Ophioglossum preserved in the Hookerian Herbarium, their own specimens, named by them- 

 selves, and substitute "Britain" on their tickets for the distant countries from which they were brought, these 

 authors would unhesitatingly pronounce their plants to be 0. vulgatum. As to the book characters of the species, 

 some are founded on erroneous observations, others are drawn from exceptional varieties or forms, and not a few 

 present only differences of words and not of meaning. Some of the minute and narrow coriaceous-fronded specimens 

 look very different from the larger ones with broad cordate fronds, but these are differences generally induced by 

 locality elevation, etc., and such differences are not constant in any locality .-Root of long fleshy fibres, sometimes 

 descending from a thickened base of the frond or tuberous rhizome. Frond simple, erect, 1 inch to a foot long, 

 bearing one (rarely two) coriaceous, simple, linear, or lanceolate or ovate, opaque or translucent leaf, with reticulate 

 venation. Fructification a long flattened spike, which is shorter or longer than the leaf, and consists of two opposite 

 rows, each of six to thirty globose capsules, cohering together, and to a central axis, each bursting transversely. 

 Spores very minute, rounded, and trigonous. (Name from o<£is, a serpent, and yWcra, a tongue) 



1 Ophioglossum vulgatum, Linn. 



Var. /3. costatum; fronde ovata v. lanceolata reticulata venosa costata v. ecostata.-O. costatum, 

 Br Prodr. O. elongatum, R. Cunn. in A. Cunn. Prodr. 



Yar. 7 . gramineum; fronde ovata v. lanceolata acuta ecostata enervi.-O. gramineum, Willi. Br. 



Prodr. . 



Yar. 8. Lusitanicum; fronde lineari-lanceolata v. lineari-oblonga enervi ecostata.— O. Lusitanicum, 



Auct. 0. coriaceum, A. Cunn. Prodr. 



Yar. e. minimum; parvulum, 1-2-unciale, fronde rhombeo-ovata v. oblonga acuta. 



Hab. Common throughout the Islands, in grassy places, Cunningham, etc. (A native of England.) 



Gen. XXXIV. BOTBYCHIUM, L. 



Capsulce globosse, sessiles, distinctse, in spicam di-trichotome divisam biseriatim dispositse, transverse 

 dehiscentes. Sports trilobatee.— Radix subtuberosa, fihris crassis. Frons herbacea, pinnatim v. bi-tripin-^ 

 naiim divisa ; venis pinnatis, radiatisve, simplicibus v. furcatis. Spica pedunculata ; pedunculo e bast 



is or to. 



A genus of few (perhaps only two) species, found in various temperate and tropical countries. B. Virginicum, 

 the only New Zealand one, is also found in Australia, Tasmania, the Himalaya mountains, in North and South 

 America, and, what is very remarkable, occasionally in Norway, but nowhere else in Europe, nor in Asia north 

 of the Himalayas. The succulent fronds are cooked and eaten in New Zealand and India.— Root of very thick, fleshy 

 fibres. Frond solitary, 3 inches to 2 feet high, very coriaceous and thick, consisting of one tripinnate or ternately 

 decompound stipitate leaf, and a long, erect peduncle, bearing a deltoid or ovate trichotomously branched spike of 

 capsules, with unilateral ascending branches. Pinnules lobed and crenate, blunt, obscurely veined ; casta, stipes, 

 and racUs glabrous or pubescent or woolly. Capsules globose, separate from one another, distichously arranged 

 on the branches of the spike, each bursting transversely. Spores very minute, three-lobed or of three connate 

 spheres. (Name from fiorpys, a cluster; from the branched clusters of capsules.) 



* 1 Botrychium Virginicum, L. ; glabra v. pubescens, scapo subradicali, fronde trichotome divisa, seg- 

 mentis bipinnatifidis lobatis crenatisque.-I?r. Prodr. A. Cunn, Prodr. Osmunda ternata, Thnnb. Jap. 

 p. 829. t. 32. 



Hab. Northern and Middle Islands, as far south as Canterbury, Banks and Solander, etc. Nat. 



name, "Patotara," Col. 



Obs. The English B. Lunaria, having been found in Fuegia and Tasmania, probably exists in New Zealand 

 also ; it may be recognized by its simple pinnate frond, with rhomboid or lunate, crenate, radiately veined pinnse. 



