HorLoway.— Studies in the New: Zealand Hymenophyllaceae. 591 
on the tree-trunks than does the latter, these two species overtopping the 
other two smaller species. H. rarum is occasionally to be found in in 
close mats on the perpendicular damp rock-walls of open ravines from 
which H. flabellatum is absent. 
I have rarely ie the fronds of any of these four species wilted. 
ie hos gorges on the main ranges, after some unusual period of drying 
, when practically all the epiphytic ferns and mosses show 
eu of drought, it is to be observed that even the large-sized fronds 
of Н. rarum and H. flabellatum in a mid-epiphytie station are generally 
quite unaffected. It is to be noted that both these species are unusually 
coloured, Н. rarum being a pale grey-green or even sometimes grey-blue 
colour, and H. flabellatum having a somewhat yellowish tinge. It may 
be that the colour acts as a protection, enabling the protoplasm in the 
frond-cells to withstand greater degrees of insolation and drying. The 
| ЁД. 
older аа altogether unaffected by drought when the moss in which 
they were growing was dry and shrivelled. H. dignior and T. Lyallii 
are e more hygrophilous — are the other two species, and in 
their sheltered station are less exposed to the danger of shrivelling. 
Intermediate seo = snp qm be found at mountain altitudes 
which seem to link up H. flabellatum with H. rufescens, although these 
two species for the Her part occur side by side in their usual distinctive 
forms. With regard to specimens of H. flabellatum collected on the 
subantarctic Auckland Island, дейле says (22, р. 436) “they belong 
to a curious form intermediate n H. um and H. rufescens 
. which could almost be ind to either species." I may add 
that I have collected such intermediate forms also on Mount Hope, in 
the Nelson District. As Cheeseman indicates (loc. cit.), however, the stipe 
and rhachis ot H. flabellatum, especially in its most stunted rufous form, 
never become quite so slender as are those of H. rufescens, and the frond 
of the latter е preserves the more delicate form characteristic of it. 
(e.) H. mee H. peltatum, H. Armstrongii, H. minimum. (Plates 
67.) 
s afi ur species are among the smallest in the New Zealand family, 
showing УРЫУ. the close mat growth-form, and may for this reason 
conveniently be grouped — Of these the two latter are quite 
size. H. Armstrongii is, in Westland, the most widely dis- 
looked, especially as it usually grows in moss. In the lowlands it occurs 
quite commonly as a low epiphyte on the smooth sapling-like stems of 
Quintinia and young kamahi, on which a very thin, scanty moss covering, 
a most suitable substratum for such a small plant, is often present. In 
this station the individual plants are usually lo signat ino and not 
aggregated into mats. It also occurs онь іп a more mat-like form 
in the tops of the tall taxads throughout the lowlands slong with the 
other high epiphytic filmy ferns mentioned already. It is abundant on 
the mountain-flanks also up to an altitude of 3,000 ft., both on the stems 
of Quintinia and occasionally also in mats on mossy stones. I have also 
found this species in the neighbourhood of Otira growing in dense mats 
