Colenso.- — On a Collection of Ferns, 313 



surprising, bearing in mind that several of our described ferns are, as far as 

 is known at present, particularly local ; some species, indeed, having been 

 only detected in one or two places, and there scarce; while others are chiefly 

 confined to the South Island. Of all those rarer ones I give here a brief 

 list, setting them down pretty nearly in the sequence of their scarcity, or of 

 their little-known habitats. 



Gym.nogram.me rut of o lia . 



Nephrolepis tuberosa. 



Toclea africana. 



Adiantum formosum. 



Loxsoma cunninghamii. 



Aspidiupi ocellatum. 

 , , cystostegia. 



Nephrodium molle. 



,, tlielypteris var. squamulosum. 



Asplenium, richardi. 



Cystopteris fragilis. 



Lomaria puvrila. 

 ,, fraseri. 



Trichomanes malingii. 



Hymenop h yllum minin lit m. 

 , , lyallii. 



,, unilaterale. 



Marattia salicina, and 



Alsophila colensoi (in the North Island). 



And this is still the more surprising (as we shall see) when we consider 

 the entire absence from this small limited locality of some genera more or 

 less common to different places in New Zealand which are not included in 

 the above list — viz., Qleichenia, Lindscea, Cheilanthes, Doodia, NothocMcena, 

 Lygodium, Schizcea, Ophioglossum, and Botrychium ; of these nine genera 

 half of them have but one species each (in New Zealand), and of the former 

 brief list, six genera, also, each contain but one New Zealand species ; so 

 that, of the whole number of absent genera from that one locality (fifteen), 

 no less than eleven contain only one New Zealand species each. 



And here I may be permitted briefly to mention, for the especial benefit 

 of my lady and young hearers, and also of strangers (if any) who have not 

 yet realized the great advantages of diving into the depths of our New 

 Zealand forests, — that to see our ferns in all their natural beauty, they 

 should be visited in their cool sequestered retreats and bowers and grots at 

 two seasons of the year, namely, in the spring and early summer, and in the 

 autumn verging into winter. At the first of these two seasons many of them 



