874 Transactions. — Botany. 



1. In all those drawings and dissections (except in the plate of G. lepto- 

 phylla in Beddome's South India Ferns), though made by different persons. 

 and at widely different times, and not being mere copies fi'om each other, 

 there is a great common likeness — as indeed there should be ; but they all 

 show a very much larger, stouter and more leafy and many-fronded plant 

 than our New Zealand one. Sir W. J. Hooker says of the British fern, that 

 " its fronds are all bi-tri-pinnate," with their " vachises winged above" ; (in 

 his large folio di-awmg, with dissections in the Icones Filicum, the rachis 

 is largely winged below also) ; such, however is not the case in our New 

 Zealand plant. I have collected scores — perhaps hundreds — of the New 

 Zealand fern (the entire little tufted plant in all its stages) in its two locali- 

 ties (supra), but I have never found one that approached in size or ap- 

 pearance the European one. In fact the New Zealand plant has no such 

 outer (" barren ") pinnated fronds as the British one possesses. The up- 

 right fronds of the New Zealand fern are commonly very small, often under 

 1 inch, and never exceeding 1^ inches, while those of the British plant 

 generally run to 3-4 inches. 



2. The New Zealand plant, including its first leaves or small early 

 fronds, has rarely ever a barren one ; its first fronds are very small, and 

 often merely kidney-shaped with crenate edges, or small incised lobes, and 

 when tri-lobed or parted, are simply once so, and are then differently lobed 

 to those of the European plant, never being regularly pinnated like the 

 barren fronds of that one ; they are also generally all fertile, however small. 

 The texture of its fronds is also more stout and herbaceous than that of the 

 British one, which is always described as being " membranaceous." 



3. The larger and more upright fronds of the New Zealand plant are 

 not only very much smaller with fewer pinn®, but their segments are all 

 smaller and more acute and pointed, often sharply bifid ; while those of the 

 British plant are rounded and obtuse. Their stipes are also much longer in 

 proportion to the size of theii- fronds. The stipe is also of a bright red 

 colour, glossy and deeply channelled on the upper surface ; while the stipe 

 of the British plant is always described by all authors as being " black." 



4. The sori in om* New Zealand plant are much more diffuse and con- 

 fluent, generally covering the whole of the undersurface of the segment, 

 never disposed in clear lines on the veins as in the British one. The 

 veinules, too, are longer approaching nearer to the margin, and not extend- 

 ing beyond the sori as in the British plant. Often on the small reniform 

 first fronds the sori are regularly disposed in almost cu'cular spots, free, 

 and distinct at the apices of the venules just within the margin of the frond. 

 The sporules also are more angular, black, glossy, and pitted, characters 

 which are wanting in those of the British plant. 



