130 FLORA OF TASMANIA. | Filices. 
Crass ACOTYLEDONES. 
Nat. Orv. I. FILICES. 
Tasmania, as compared with the drier continent of Australia, is very rich in Ferns (including Lyco- 
podiacea, etc.), but poor if compared with the New Zealand Islands, which have just twice as many Ferns, 
and not much more than half as many flowering plants, as Tasmania possesses. Tropical Australia contains 
about as many Ferns as Tasmania, almost all of them belonging to different species. New South Wales 
and Victoria (that is, South-eastern Australia) contain about as many as Tasmania, whilst South-west 
Australia presents scarcely a dozen species. The Tasmanian Ferns are almost unexceptionally identical 
with New Zealand ones, and many have a very wide range indeed. 
Tribe I. GLEICHENIACER, Br.— Capsules 2-4, sessile, bursting longitudinally, completely surrounded by an | 
oblique or transverse striated ring. 
Gen. I. GLEICHENIA, Smith. 
Involuerum 0, v. e margine frondis revolute. — Capsule in quovis soro 1-6, sessiles, annulo completo 
cincte, longitudinaliter dehiscentes.—Rhizoma repens. 
A large genus, of coriaceous, rigid, opaque Ferns, chiefly natives of the tropics, Australia, and New Zealand. 
A few are found in Japan, Owhyhee, and temperate South America.—Rhizome creeping, often chaffy or woolly, 
as is the whole plant sometimes. Stipes erect, rigid, sometimes very small and slender. Frond dichotomously 
branched; divisions simple or pinnate. Pinne narrow, pinnatifid ; the segments generally convex, sometimes with 
revolute margins, which form an involucre. Sori of one to six sessile capsules, that burst longitudinally, each sur- 
rounded by a complete ring, placed at the end or middle or axil of the simple or forked veinlets.— The microscopic 
characters of a naked sorus, consisting of very few capsules, and a complete ring surrounding the sessile capsule, 
which bursts from the base to the apex, are certain marks of this genus. (Name in honour of K. W. F. von 
Gleichen, a German author on mieroscopic plants.) 
$ 1. EUGLEICHENIA.— Sorvs at the apex of a veinlet. Segments of the pinne broad, short. 
l. Gleichenia microphylla (Br. Prodr. 161); fronde dichotome ramosa, ramis divaricatis pin- 
natis, pinnis pinnatifidis glabris, lobis subrotundis ovatisve planis concavisve, marginibus non inflexis, 
capsulis 1-4 exsertis, rachibus stipitegue superne hirtis, pilis ferrugineis rachi sepius stellatis.— Hook. Sp. 
Fil. i. p. 3. t. 2 A. G. semivestita, Labill. Sert. Nov. Cal. p. 8. t. 11. G. Spelunce, Guill. Ic. Plant. 
Rar. t. 12. (Gunn, 13, 1500, 1502.) 
Has. Common in loose forest land, etc. : Georgetown, Macquarrie Harbour, ete.—(v. v.) 
Distrib. New South Wales and Victoria, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Malay Islands. (Cultivated’ 
in England.) 
Fronds 15—3 feet high. Stipes terete, slender, generally smooth, often shining below, woolly or chaffy above. 
Branches dichotomous, spreading, a span to a foot long, forked and pinnate ; rachis chaffy, and covered with scat- 
tered, stellate, rusty-red hairs. Pinne 14-2 inches long, 2 inch broad, shining above, often glaucous below, there 
covered with long, weak, lax, deciduous hairs, or perfectly glabrous; costa often chaffy in the young state, smooth 
in the old. Segments broadly oblong or rounded, not cucullate as in the following species. Capsules one to four. 
—The G. Spelunce figured in the ‘ Species Filicum,’ from Tasmania (Gunn, 34), appears to be a young specimen 
of this species. 
