Exvs.— On Botrychium lunaria in New Zealand. 363 
and smooth, sessile, perfectly free all round, reddish-brown, darker towards 
the top, and there thickly covered with minute black dots, having a de- 
pressed orbicular coronula 2 lines diameter, roughish, slightly rising in the 
centre with a small plain ostiole. 
Hab. On ground, forests near Norsewood, 1883: W.C. 
Obs.—A species having some affinity with G. archeri, Berk., a Tas- 
manian species. 
Geaster affinis, sp. nov. 
Outer peridium sessile, 81 inches diameter expanded, flat on the ground, 
marked with 2-8 concentric rings on outside near base, thin, light brown 
and smooth outside, divided into 8 narrow deltoid-acuminate acute segments, 
cut down nearly to the base, segments roughish and darker-brown inside ; 
inner peridium 14 inches diameter, globular, light tawny, sessile, free to base, 
with a ridge running round the inside, about 3 lines below bases of segments, 
at top a small coronula, 3 lines diameter, subplicate, mouth elevated, large, 
conical, more than 1 line diameter, laciniated. 
Hab. On ground, elevated woods, at Glenross, 1883: Mr. D. P. Bal- 
four; and other places near Napier, 1883: W.C. 
Obs.—A species near to G. tenuipes, Berk.,—also a Tasmanian species. 
Art. XXVIL—On the Occurrence of the Fern Botrychium lunaria, Sw., 
(Moonwort) in New Zealand. By J. D. Enys. 
[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 3rd May, 1883.) 
On 15th November, 1882, I was engaged laying out the line of a wire 
fence across a piece of ground of a peaty nature resting on a stiff clay about 
2,600 feet above the sea, when I detected the first specimen of this well-known 
fern. After a close search I failed in finding a second, indeed the first 
specimen had only just shown up. About a week later I found a number 
more showing up in two spots in the same neighbourhood ; a month or so 
later not one remained, this may partly be owing to the dry season. 
I have copied out the description from Hooker and Baker's ** Synopsis 
Filieum " (1868), as New Zealand fern collectors may not have access to a 
description of this fern. 
« B. lunaria, Sw., st. stout; 1-4 inches; sterile segm. sessile or nearly so, 
1-8 inches long, 3-1 inch broad, not much broader at the base than the 
middle, cut down to a flattened rhachis into several distinct, close, entire, or 
