22 ASPIDIUM, § POLYSTICHUM. 



12. New Holland, New Zealand, and Southern Antarctic Regions. 

 These countries are rich in plants of the aculeatum-grouYt ; and the first perhaps 

 published was under the name of Polvpodium vestituin, Forst. Prodr. n, 445. 

 Aspidium, Siv. Syn. Fil. pp. 53 and 254.' Schk. Fil. t. 43. Willd. Sp. PL v. p. 261. 

 Forster unfortunately gives no locality for his plant. Schkuhr, who is generally 

 considered to have derived his specitnens of Forster's Ferns from Forster himself, 

 is equally silent: his figure faithfidly represents Aspid. aculeatum. Swartz says, 

 " Insula; Maris Pacifici," but he offers no authority; Willdenow, " New Zealand 

 and New Holland." It would indeed appear that nearly all the aculeatum growing 

 in countries whose shores are washed by the Pacific, have borne the name of ves- 

 titum. Their fronds are not unfrequently proliferous, and then they become the 

 Aspid. proliferum, Br. Prodr. p. 147. In New Zealand (Northern Island, Colenso; 

 Middle Island, Joliffe, Dr. Munro). In Banks's Island is a variety well worthy of 

 notice, from its rigid habit, extreme regularity and uniformity of the pinnse and 

 pinnules, the very straight rachis, and this covered on the under side with lanceo- 

 late, rigid, incurved, somewhat distichous, rather large, glossy black scales, edged 

 with brown, giving great richness of colouring and beauty to the plant ; to this 

 Colenso has in his MSS. given the name Aspid. pulcherrimum. These scales are 

 more or less abundant on other forms. I fear Dr. Hooker's Polystichum aristatum, 

 Fl. N. Zeal. ii. p. 37. t. 78 (not Aspid. aristatum, Sw.), can only be considered 

 as the lohatum form of aculeatum. Aspid. aculeatum, then, as we venture to call 

 the species, is common in mountain districts throughout the Northern and Southern 

 Islands of New Zealand, Banks and Solander, Colenso, J. D. Hooker, Lyall, Joliffe, 

 Munro. Sinclair, Travers, etc. It is variable in the margins of the pinnules, some- 

 times almost entire, sometimes spinuloso-serrate, sometimes again pinnate, so that 

 the fronds are then tripinnate. — In Australia it is known only, I believe, on the 

 south-eastern portion, from Sydney to Hunter's River; this is the Aspid. prolife- 

 rum, Br., as we have before observed (not of Hook, and Grev.) and Metten. 

 Aspid. p. 49, and Aspid. radicans, 5(>Zf. Syn. Fit. p. 104. — In Tasmania it is more 

 common in subalpine situations, as on Mount Wellington, from 3000 feet elev. to 

 the summit. — In the subpolar regions Aspid. aculeatum is more uniform as far as 

 we yet know, always stout, firm and coriaceous, very paleaceous, and the large scales 

 varying much in colour from rich tawny to entire black, or with a |)aler and 

 sometimes well-defined edge ; pinnules often very convex on the upper side. It 

 is the Polystichum venustum, Hombr. and Jacquemont, Voy. an Pole Sad, t. 5. N. 

 (without description) ; Lord Auckland's and Campbell's Islands, from the level 

 of the sea to 1200-1400 feet, caudex 2-4 feet high ; and Falkland Islands, /. D. 

 Hooker ; Macquarrie Island, Fraser ; Tierra del Fuego, Darwin. 



2.3. A. (Polystichum) Prescottianum ; caudex short thick 

 erect or declined paleaceous with very large brown scales, 

 stipites densely tufted stout 1-4 inches long and as well as 

 the stramineous glossy rachis and cost^e and veins especially 

 beneath villous with soft lax hair-like pale-coloured scales, 

 on the stipes mixed with large ovate membranaceous ones, 

 fronds 1-2 feet long rarely in the broadest part 2 inches 

 wide elongato-lanceolate acuminate soft and membranaceous 

 gradually narrowing at the base pinri^ite or subbipinnate, 

 pinnae ovato-oblong sessile tapering to an obtuse apex deeply 

 pinnatifid (except at the very apex) almost to the costa 

 (some of the inferior ones pinnate), lobes or pinnules ovate or 

 oblong without auricle strongly and uniforndy serrated the 



