308 Transactions. — Botany. 



Hab. In low-lying forests between Norsewood and Danneverke, 

 " Seventy-mile Bush," April, 1882. 



III. Hymenophyllum, Smith. 



Hymenophyllum megalocarpwn, n. sp. 



Plant terrestrial and epiphytical, sarmentose ; rhizome glabrous ; roots 

 and rootlets densely villous with long red-brown spreading hairs. 



Stipes, ^-2% inches apart on rhizome, 2-4 inches long, generally much 

 shorter than the frond, cylindrical, glabrous, glossy, stout, wiry, flexuose, 

 red-brown, sometimes greenish. 



Frond, tri-quadri-pinnatifid, deltoid or deltoid-acuminate, 3-4^ in. long, 

 3-4| inches broad at base, sometimes slightly acuminate, upright or slightly 

 decurved, spreading, membranous, semi-pellucid, light-green, glabrous, not 

 shining, not elastic ; pinna and pinnules crowded, imbricate ; main rhachis 

 and secondary rhachises red coloured, winged throughout ; wings crisped ; very 

 young fronds slightly scaly below with red-brown wrinkled deciduous scales 

 on stipes and rhachis ; primary pinnules opposite, falcate, lowermost pair 

 deflexed ; secondary pinnules sub-opposite and alternate, sub-secund, falcate, 

 cuneate below, very thickly set, overlapping, outermost free. 



Segments, or lobes, regular, narrow, linear, 1-3 lines long, width under 

 ■J line, obtuse, entire, plane, terminal sometimes forked, very rarely elon- 

 gate ; veins prominent. 



Involucres on lateral segments, very large, much wider than segments, 

 T^-i inch wide at widest part, divided down to base, turgid, open, 

 spreading and recurved, obconical, semi-elliptic, deltoid, and suborbicular, 

 sometimes twice the size of the clusters of sori, entire, emarginate, some- 

 times slightly crenulate at apex, often geminate, sometimes two from one 

 vein, and sometimes even three together. 



Sori in large rotund clusters and coloured red, prominent, exserted, 

 sometimes two clusters within one involucre ; capsules very large, convex, 

 glossy. 



This species of Hymenophyllum is (as I take it) a striking and interest- 

 ing novelty ; owing to its large clusters of richly-coloured sori, and their 

 still larger and spreading involucres or involucral leaves, — in their manner 

 of growth almost resembling those of a small cabbage or lettuce around 

 its heart, — and also with (in some places) its twin clusters of sori within 

 one involucre, and arising from a single vein. I know of nothing like 

 it among our many and varied species of Hymenophyllum; although 

 this species is not so large as several of the New Zealand species of 

 this genus, its clusters of sori and involucres are the largest that 

 I know, — larger than those of H. scabrum and H. dilatatum. Its 

 affinities, however, (though slight), are with the old well-known and 



