306 Transactions.— Botany. 
downwards ; secondly, their pinne downwards and inwards towards the 
main rhachis ; thirdly the pinnules downwards and inwards towards the 
secondary rhachises; and then, fourthly, the very fruiting segments them- 
selves conniving inwardly :* the whole tout-ensemble being peculiar among 
our tree-ferns, and most graceful. 
Owing to its many colours, its drooping compact shape, and its being 
much more of a dwarf (though stout) tree-fern than its congeners, fully 
bearing fruit when only five feet high, it wears a very peculiar and striking 
appearance (especially when looking down on it from a height a little 
above)—one that attracts the eye immediately. 
I have long known this fern in its young and barren state; and I had 
always a suspicion that it was really distinct from C. dealbata; but Dr. Sir 
J. Hooker had so clearly stated that C. dealbata was our only tree-fern 
bearing ‘‘ fronds” that were ** white and glaucous below,” that I confess 
I have been for a considerable time thrown off my guard with respect to 
it. But during this last autumn, while botanizing in another and unvisited 
part of the Seventy-mile Bush, I fell in with several plants of this species, 
of various sizes and ages, and many of them bearing fruit in discre so 
I had ample means and opportunity for examination. 
Hab. Deep forests (Seventy-mile Bush) on eastern outlying spurs of the 
Ruahine Mountain Range, between Norsewood and Danneverke villages ; 
April, 1882, 
II. Dicksonia, L’ Héritier. 
Dicksonia gracilis, n. sp. 
Plant, arborescent ; trunk 10-15 feet high, slender, greyish-brown ; on 
upper portion remains of old stipites, and at top a few dead fronds hanging 
down; bearing young plants and shoots 2-3 feet from the base. 
Fronds, 40 and upwards, sub-membranaceous, glabrous, 5-53 feet long, 
2—4 feet wide, tripinnate, oblong-lanceolate, patent, light-green above and 
lighter-green below, upper portion very free and loose not compact. 
Stipes, 9-10 inches long, at first upright and inclined inwards towards 
trunk, sub-clasping, with a large quantity of loose light red-brownish hairs 
at bases, and a dense layer of lighter coloured hirsute tomentum adhering 
beneath; hairs, 14 inch long, cylindrical, tapering, excessively fine towards 
top, straight and lax, shining as if varnished, regularly jointed, 6 joints to 
1 line, semi-bulbous at base ; stipes and rhachises dark-brown below, shining 
as if varnished, and thickly muricated throughout to apices of pinns with 
* This habit, however (so widely different from that of C. dealbata), makes it a very 
difficult matter to lay out and dry a specimen flat; indeed, I have been obliged to abandon 
it, save in a few small segments, although I took with me into the forest a portfolio having 
remarkably thick covers, 
