Porrs.— Notes on Ferns. 859 
expression would be found no longer applicable in many parts of the 
country 
Alsophila colensoi, Hook. 
Perhaps the hardiest of our tree-fern group, it may be found in 
mountainous districts, sometimes in very exposed places on the outskirts of 
bush, at an altitude of from 2,000 feet to 3,000 feet. Trunk often absent 
or prostrate, exposed or covered with soil, from two to four feet long. 
Where fronds have been exposed to the rigour of severe winters, they 
assume a rich cinnamon hue. Malvern Hills; near mountain tops on 
Banks Peninsula. ‘ 
Hymenophyllum bivalve, Swartz. 
On rocks or trees, in thick masses in bushy gullies, west of Mount 
Somers ; also plentiful on Banks Peninsula. 
Hymenophyllum javanicum, Spreng. 
This filmy fern flourishes near waterfalls, often in a bed of moss 
together with Polypodium grammitidis. Its habit is tufted, more so than is 
usually the case with Hymenophyllacee. In rocky gullies near the Rakaia 
Gorge; also westerly as far as the Havelock River, at about 2,200 feet 
above the sea. 
Hymenophyllum malingii, Mett. 
One of the nearest habitats of this very peculiar fern is amongst the 
ranges of Banks Peninsula. As, under our present system of the adminis- 
tration of lands, the peninsula forests will probably be exterminated at no 
distant date, perhaps the following notes may be worth recording. 
This fern usually occupies a dry place on a decaying limb or trunk of a 
tree, at a distance of several feet from the ground. We have found it on 
Podocarpus totara, Libocedrus doniana, etc., ete. From the similarity of 
its varying tints and shades of greens, greys, and browns, it may be easily 
mistaken for a patch of lichens. We have not met with it carrying its fronds 
erect, as described in Hooker's * Handbook." Its pendent fronds form 
thick imbrieated masses ; its thick woolly tomentum enables it to catch and 
retain moisture gathered from mountain fogs and mists; its rough rhizome 
creeps amongst and through the ragged strips of soft bark, and even 
penetrates the bark itself. The young frond, where it shoots from the 
rhizome, has at the swollen base of the stipe a dense patch of hair or 
scales; the stipe itself is sparsely sprinkled with pale brown hairs. Just 
below the rachis the tomentum is dense, as it is indeed over every part of 
the frond. The growing frond soon loses its crozier state, uncurling into 
a lunate form; colour buffish, changing to greyish-green with a silvery 
glint; the terminal divisions with the sori orange-brown. Some of the 
lower pinne are darkish-green above, reddish-brown beneath. With the 
