344 Transactions. — Botany. 



(.'lass III. Ckyptogamia. 

 Order I. FILICES. 

 Genus 1. Gleichenia, Smith. 

 Gleichenia littoralis, inihi. 



Plant gregarious ; rhizome creeping, stoutish, thickly clothed with 

 shining brown laciniate scales ; stipes erect, glabrous, 6-8 inches high, 

 sub-cjdindrical below, flattish above, deeply channelled on upper surface,' 

 olive-green, sometimes light-brown ; fronds sub-flabelliform, 2-branched, 

 each main branch once or twice forked, or sometimes with 3 single branch- 

 lets; branchlet ovate-acuminate, 4-6 inches long, 1-1^ inches broad near 

 base, pinnate below, deeply pinnatifid quite to midrib above, extending 

 also to apex which is not caudate ; colour reddish-green, rhachis and veins 

 red ; segments linear, glabrous, sub-membranaceous, opposite and occa- 

 sionally alternate, plane, patent, sub-erect, broadest at base, decurrent, -|— | 

 inch long, 1 line wide, pinnate, distant and sub-adnate, not decurrent, 

 (those on branchlets below the upper forkings are generally the longest — 

 there are none below the first or lowest fork), margins entire (slightly re- 

 curved in age), sometimes a few segments are irregularly and very finely 

 and distantly serrulate ; apices very obtuse incurved and adpressed and 

 finely woolly on both surfaces ; midrib and veins woolly below with shining 

 silky spreading hairs ; capsules reddish, usually 4 together (sometimes 5 or 

 3), biserial on upper veinlets of middle of segments, exposed ; veins promi- 

 nent, forked. 



Hah. "Wooded cliffy shores of Whangaruru Bay S., 1836-41 : W.C. 

 Owana, E. coast Great Barrier Islet, Thames, 1883 : Mr. C. P. Winkelmann. 



Obs. — This species is allied to our G. fiabellata, Br. (but is very distinct 

 from it, though often, I think, confounded with it), and, possibly, more so 

 to the Cape Horn species, G. amtifolia, Hook., particularly in its being a 

 small pedate, erect, non-proliferous species, and like that species also a 

 seaside plant. . It seems to have a narrow range, at least I never met with 

 it anywhere else than in that one habitat at Whangaruru, though there it 

 grew plentifully and thickly in one spot, which I visited year after year 

 from the time of its first detection, but could only find short barren 

 yellowish fronds, which both A. Cunningham and Sir W. J. Hooker 

 supposed to be those of G. flabellata in its young state ; this, however, I 

 always doubted. Now, then, after more than 45 years ! it has been re- 

 discovered by Mr. Winkelmann as above, from whom I have had for 

 examination several specimens in full fruit, and pretty uniform. 

 Gleichenia piunctulata, mihi. 



Fronds erect, slender, l-J-2^- feet high, repeatedly dichotomously 

 branched, very regular; stipe and rhachises slender, brown, densely scaly, 



