56 



FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND. 



\_Characece. 



I know of no other places in which this fine plant grows but New Zealand and Java. There is however in 

 Herb. Hook, a specimen marked as from Owhyhee by Mr. Menzies, whose localities I have several times had occa- 

 sion to doubt; and M. Spring adds Society Islands (Forster) and King George's Sound (Herb. Webb.), the latter an 

 unlikely habitat. The native women are fond of adorning their hair with the fronds of this, which is by far the 

 most beautiful of any species I know. — Stems slender, twining, climbing over trees and bushes, many feet long, wiry, 

 sparingly leafy, much branched. Branches spreading, compressed, dichotomously divided. Leaves of two kinds ; 

 larger bifarious, distichous, laterally flattened, spreading, lanceolate, falcate, top incurved, acuminate, decurrent, 

 coriaceous, smaller or stipulary leaves subulate, appressed to the stem. Spi/ces numerous, drooping, in branched 

 dichotomous panicles |-21 inches long, obscurely quadrifarious, slender. Scales small, rounded, abruptly contracted 

 into a subulate point, margins toothed. Spores broadly pyriform, the broader hemispherical end granulated, trans- 

 parent towards the smaller end. 



Obs. L. PMegmaria, L., introduced into Cunningham's Prodromus on the faith of a specimen from Menzies, 

 labelled "Dusky Bay," is a tropical plant, which cannot be assumed to be a native of New Zealand without better 

 evidence. A specimen so marked in Cunningham's Herbarium, and gathered by himself, is L. Billardieri. 



Gen. IY. PSILOTUM, Stvartz. 



Capsular 3-loculares, 3-valves, axillis foliorum sitae, coriacese, opacse, sporis minimis farcte. — Caulis 

 nudus, aphyllus v.foliis minimis squamaformihus ; ramis triquetris. 



A very widely distributed Fern, found in America from Carolina and Florida to South Brazil, in India, the 

 Atlantic and Pacific Islands, and Australia and New Zealand. — Stems rigid, erect or pendulous, 2 inches to a foot 

 high, simple below, dichotomously branched above ; branches three-angled, bearing a few distant scale-like leaves. 

 Capsules large, coriaceous, three-lobed, three-celled, full of very minute spores, which burst in water and discharge 

 a cloud of excessively minute particles. — This genus differs in habit and the three-celled capsules from 

 (Name from i/^iXos, naked; in allusion to the leafless stem and exposed capsules.) 



1. Psilotum triquetmm, Swartz, Syn. Ml. Br. Prodr. Lycopodium nudum, Linn. 



Hab. Northern Island : Bay of Plenty, Mr. Joliffe. 



Nat. Ord. XCVIII. MAUSILEACEiE, Br. 



Gen. I. AZOLLA, Lam. 



1. Azolla rubra, Br. Prodr. p. 167. 



Hab. Northern Island : East Coast and interior, Colenso, etc. 



A native of Australia and Tasmania. 



Nat. Ord. XCIX. CHARACEvE, Mich. 



Gen. I. NITELLA, Ag. 



1. Nitella Ilookeri, Braun in Hook. Journ. Bot. v. l.p. 199 (1849). 

 Hab. Northern Island; in still water, not uncommon, Colenso, etc. 

 Originally found in Kerguelen's Land, which is its only other known habitat. 



Obs. Several other species of this genus, and of the allied genus Chara, have been sent from New Zealand, 

 but the specimens are not in a fit state for satisfactory determination. 



