310 Transactions. — Botany. 



thick and very prominent, and sometimes confluent, distant from both mid- 

 rib and margin, but more so from the margin ; involucre linear-oblong, 

 whitish, very membranous and semi-pellucid ; edge slightly erose. 



Scales at base, black, glossy, deltoid-ovate very acuminate, 8 lines long, 

 li lines broad at base, reticulations large, subsphagnoid parallelogrammic, 

 very conspicuous ; margins entire and sparsely and irregularly fringed. 



Hab. On decomposing limestone ridges, forests near Norsewood, W.C. ; 

 at Takapau, Mr. J. Stewart ; and at Te Aute, Mr. C. P. Winkelmann. 



This plant has some natural affinity with two of our well-known New Zea- 

 land species — A. obtusatum and A. hookerianum — although it widely differs 

 from both in appearance ; those two ferns also belonging to two very different 

 sections of the genus. Were some of the characters of this fern not so dis- 

 cordant with those of either of the two aforementioned species, I should 

 have classed it as a variety of one of them. It seems, however, to partake 

 in several points of both those species, and may yet prove to be a step 

 towards uniting them in a regular natural sequence. 



It differs from A. obtusatum in the form of its pinnae, especially the ter- 

 minal one, in their texture and in that of the stipes rhachis and petioles, in 

 colour, in venation, and in the form of its sori and scales. It is more nearly 

 allied to A. hookerianum. in the texture of its frond and its venation, in the 

 slenderness of its stipe rhachis and petioles, in the disposition of its lateral 

 pinnae, in its colour, and in its large (often solitary) sori, and scales ; but 

 differs in being only once-pinnate, with larger entire and simple regular 

 pinnas on shorter petioles, its very large terminal pinna, and thick stout 

 tufted head or caudex. It has scarcely any natural affinity with another 

 small New Zealand pinnate species or variety, A. paucifolium, Hook., (a plant 

 I formerly obtained from those same localities), which is, I believe, a dwarf 

 variety of A. lucidum. Its peculiar and beautiful large basal scales approach 

 very near to those of A. paleaceum, Br., from Queensland, and to those of 

 A. sandersoni, Hook., from Natal. The scales of this plant are truly won- 

 derful objects under a microscope. 



It is only after an extra large amount of study, examination, and 

 research, that I have concluded to advance another new species of Asple- 

 nium ; and I confess I should not have done so, had I not fortunately 

 obtained an unusually large number of good specimens — not merely of 

 single fronds but of entire plants — and their uniformity is great. 



