Colenso. — Description of new Ferns. 309 



common species H. demissum and H. polyanthos, and with the new one H. 

 erecto-alatum, particularly this last, and had its stipes been winged, and 

 the wings there and on its rhachises subvertical and deeply crisped, as in 

 H. erecto-alatum, I should have been inclined to have set it down as a 

 variety of that species, notwithstanding its extra-large and peculiar involu- 

 cres and sori. Apparently the smaller the frond the more profuse its sori, 

 which in some small specimens is densely thick and heavy, and then con- 

 tracting the whole frond. Its clusters of sori are also coloured bright-red 

 when very young, long before they become mature. 



Hab. In open woods, in the Seventy-mile Bush between Norsewood 

 and Danneverke, both on the ground (but not growing thickly) and climb- 

 ing trees — particularly the trunks of the tree-ferns, arborescent Dicksonice — 

 1881, 1882. 



IV. Asplenium, Linn. 



Asplenium anomodum, n. sp. 



Plant small, suberect, spreading ; caudex very short and stout, scarcely 

 any ; stipites thickly tufted, 1-2^ inches long, rather slender, green, densely 

 clothed at base with very large reticulated glossy black scales ; roots 

 fibrous, not long, compact, numerous, brown, thickly covered with short 

 shining hairs ; fronds, 4-6 (living ones) to each plant, 2-4 £ inches long, 

 1^-2 inches broad, ovate -acuminate, pinnate, with a long terminal obtuse 

 pinna subrhomboid-lanceolate, about 2 inches long or twice the length of 

 the largest of the lateral pinnae, with sometimes a small lobe at the base ; 

 pinnm, 3-4 pairs, petiolate, distant, patent, alternate, rarely subopposite, 

 6-14 lines long, 3-6 lines broad, ovate, sometimes broadly elliptic, dimi- 

 diate, obtuse and rounded at apex, generally decreasing in size from the 

 middle of the frond downwards ; the base cuneate and excised below, and 

 truncate and subauricled above ; colour grass green, a shade lighter below ; 

 margins cartilaginous, coloured, aud bluntly serrated, often only crenu- 

 late ; petioles slender ; texture membranaceous, glabrous above, scaly below 

 on the veins with scattered long fine dark and scarious scales, having 

 divaricating lacuna? at base (almost stellate), similar in texture to those at 

 base of stipites, only very much smaller ; veins apparent, subflabellate, 

 simple, and forked, with no distinct costa, subclavate at apices and not 

 extending to margin ; rhachis slender, narrow, channelled above, and (with 

 stipe) scaly, with long twisted dark scarious scales like those on veins of 

 frond. 



Sori generally few, distant, scattered, and very irregularly distributed, 

 1, 2, or 3 (and sometimes, though rarely, 5, 6) on a pinna, occasionally 

 more, 8-18, on the terminal pinna ; at first long, afterwards broad-elliptic, 



