Colenso. — Descriptions of neiv Indigenous Plants. 337 



Hah. On clayey banks, " Seventy-mile Bush," between Norsewood and 

 Danneverke : W.C.; Glenross : Mr. D. P.Balfour; (North Island): near 

 Blenheim (South Island) : Mr. F. Reader. 



Although at first sight this species may appear very near to S. hymeno- 

 phyllum, S.flabellata and S. leptopoda, and also to my new species S. rugulosum, 

 there are many points of distinction between them. It is a much smaller 

 plant with a shorter stipe, each simple frond being also a perfect plant and 

 not rising from a creeping rhizome, — which those four species severally do. 

 It further differs from 8. flabellata, 8. leptopoda, and S. rugulosum, in having 

 serrated margins ; and from S.hymenophyllum (which has serrated margins), 

 in its serratures or teeth being much larger and closer, and in the divisions 

 and outline of its frond, in the shape of its segments, their apices and 

 sinuses, and most distinctly in its very minute areolation. Fortunately I 

 have been able to examine a large suite of specimens, from Hawke's Bay 

 district, and from Blenheim (South Island) ; and am also well acquainted 

 with all the known New Zealand species of this genus. 



[Obs. In describing the fructification, I have added this word — 

 " beneath " — for clearness ; although it properly belongs to the generic 

 description, which character, however, is not given in its place, in the 

 short description of the genus in the " Handbook," nor in the " Flora 

 of New Zealand." From my too closely following what is said in the 

 " Handbook," — at the close, under " Additions, Corrections," etc., — " a 

 new arrangement of the New Zealand genera of Hepaticce by Mitten," (p. 

 752) — I fell into an error three years ago in describing, or rather in partly 

 naming, another new and closely allied species, S. rugulosum, mihi ;* as 

 there the genus is shortly characterized by Mitten as having the " Calyptra 

 on upper side of often stipitate frond," which, of course, can only mean its 

 ventral surface ; and Metzgeria, the next genus in sequence, is said by him 

 to have the " Calyptra on the under side of frond," Sir J. D. Hooker, how- 

 ever, in his " Key to the Genera of the New Zealand Hepaticce" (" Hand- 

 book," p. 500), gives as a character of this genus, — "Involucre a toothed 

 scale dorsal:" and so again, in his "Flora N.Z.," vol. ii., p. 127, — 

 Symphyogyna, Calyptra dorsal, etc.:" and in his "Flora Tasmania," vol. ii., 

 p. 239, he further says, under Symphyogyna rhizobola, (which had also been 

 erroneously described by Dr. Taylor as having its " Calyptra ventral,") — 

 "the fructification is truly dorsal, as in all others of the genus." And so 

 it is stated in the " Synopsis Hepaticorum" : but all this I did not fully know 

 three years ago, until after I had described S. rugulosum, (although at that 

 time I had doubts about it, as my paper will also show), being led astray, 

 as I take it, by the latest published authority on Hepaticce.] 



* " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," vol. xiii., p. 368. 

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