458 Transactions.— Dotany. 
pair of pinne; pinne twice pinnatifid, unequally rhomboid, the lowest 
pair divided nearly to the mid-rib; the basal pinnules spreading; capsules, 
terminal, small, half immersed, divided nearly to the base, hairy when 
young, margins entire or erose. 
Hab: North Island—near the source of the Orua, Ruahine Mountains; 
2,000 to 3,000 feet, H. Field, junr.! South Island—Okarito, A. Hamilton. 
The affinities of this fern are with H. eruginosun, Carm. (H. subtilissi- 
mum, Kunze), and with H. flabellatum, Swartz. From the former it differs 
in the deltoid frond, in the form of the pinnae, in the long and slender 
stipes, as well as in the delicate texture and partial hairiness. It resembles 
the latter in the shape of the pinnules, but differs in the stipes being longer 
than the frond, which is never ovate or linear, and the pinnules are never 
crowded. In habit our plant differs widely from both; in texture and 
colour it resembles Trichomanes lyallii. 
The stipes, rachis, costa, veins and involucres are usually hairy, at 
least when young; but hairs are rarely produced from the surface of the 
frond ; in H. eruginosum they are developed from both surfaces, and from 
the margins of the frond as well as from the veins; they are usually 
straight, and never deciduous as in our plant, my oldest specimens of 
which have very few hairs. The valves of the capsule are minutely erose 
in my young specimens from the Ruahine mountains, but this character is 
not developed in the mature specimens from Okarito. 
This species was originally discovered by Mr. Field in the Ruahine 
mountains, and I was indebted to Mr. H. C. Field of Wanganui for a single 
young frond as far back as the early part of 1877, but it was not until the 
receipt of a supply of specimens from Mr. Hamilton, that I was able to 
satisfy myself of its specific validity. 
ESCRIPTION OF PLATE XIX., Fig. A. 
Hymenophyllum rufescens, nat. size. 
1, 1. Pinna with capsule from old frond, enlarged. 
2, 2. Pinna and capsule from young frond, enlarged. 
- Art. LXX V.— Notes and Suggestions on the Utilization of certain neglected New 
Zealand Timbers. By T. Kg, F.L.S. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 9th November, 1878.] 
Tuere is probably no other British colony in which the vegetable products 
are wasted to so great an extent as in New Zealand. I do not now refer to 
the wanton destruction which, in the North Island especially, accompanies 
