CoLENSO. — On the Ferns of Scinde Island. 376 



Dr. Hooker, in his " Handbook," says of our New Zealand plant, — 

 " Fronds 1-8 inches, veins dichotomous ;" and in his " Flora of New Zea- 

 land" (where it is more largely described), it is also said to possess a flex- 

 uose midrib (" Costa flexuosa ") ; characters, however, which I do not find 

 pertaining to our New Zealand plant. In my first published description of 

 it (stipra) I said, — " Frond 6-20 lines long; veins simple, forked;" and I 

 had plenty of specimens. 



Curiously enough the first or smaller fronds of Beddome's South India 

 plant (I.e., tab. 270) more resemble some of our New Zealand ones, in 

 simple outline and in being fertile ; although the long flexuose stipe is 

 altogether dissimilar being very much longer and more wiry. Beddome 

 also remarks (in opposition to Sir W. J. Hooker's observation on the British 

 plant), that, — "All my specimens have all their fronds fertile." From its 

 appearance however, as shown in the drawing (by no means a good one), I 

 should infer its being distinct from the European G. leptophylla, though 

 nearly allied. 



There are also two or three other weU-known closely alhed yet distinct 

 annual species described by Sir W. J. Hooker in his " Species Filicum," as 

 G. cJmropfujlla (from South America) and G. ascensionis (only found in the 

 small islet of Ascension) ; and it seems to me that the difference between 

 those two allowed distinct species (of which I also have both drawings and 

 dissections in the Botanical works above mentioned, and the European G. 

 leptophijlla is not greater than that between it and our New Zealand plant. 



G. leptophylla is also said to be found in Australia and Tasmania [vide 

 Hook, f., FL, Tasmania, and Bentham's Fl. Australiensis), but I have 

 not seen a specimen nor a drawing of either of them. They may more 

 closely correspond with the European one than ours of New Zealand do ; 

 or they may be more closely alUed with ours (which I am inclined to believe 

 from the descriptions of them), or, as it were, be intermediate. I note that 

 Bentham says of the Australian plant, " often under two inches high," etc., 

 and Dr. Hooker, of the Tasmanian one, says, " Fronds an inch to a span 

 high; pinnules 2-4 inches long; stipes and rachis usually red-brown," 

 etc. All this agrees more with the New Zealand plant than with the 

 British one, excepting tha span high. It seems to be excessively rare in 

 Tasmania, having been only found by one person, and that once only, and 

 many years ago, and in a cave. 



Evidently, however, by all those distinguished European botanists, who 

 could only have seen the Australian, Tasmanian, and New Zealand plants 

 in their di'ied state, and, I fear, without their characteristic first or early 

 fronds, which soon wither (often before the large upright ones are fully 

 developed) by them, one synthetic description, more particularly framed 



