876 Transactions. — Botany. 



from the handy livmg British plant, serves for all. I very much fear that 

 this systematized amalgamation of ferns from all countries, however opposite 

 in climate and geology (although a very good thing in itself, and when not 

 pushed to extremes), will be hereafter found to have been injuriously carried 

 too far with not a few of our New Zealand ferns. To this subject I hope 

 to return anon. 



Art. XLIX. — On some new and undescribed Neiv Zealand Ferns, 

 By W. CoLENSo, F.L.S. 



[Read before the Hawkers Bay Philosophical Institute, 8th November, 1880.] 

 HyMENOPHYLLUM PYGMiEUM, U.S. 



Rhizome capillary, creeping, spreading, much-branched and entangled, 

 tomentose with fine red hairs ; 'plant of densely matted growth ; stipe 1-2 

 lines long, erect, solitary, 2-3 lines apart, sometimes two together springing 

 from a node of the root-stock, filiform, terete, naked, sometimes bearing a 

 few scattered minute weak reddish scales ; frond 2 lines long including in- 

 volucre, 2-4 lines broad, fan-shaped in outline, colour light green, glabrous, 

 pinnate, generally one pair of pinnae (very rarely two pairs, or three single 

 ones, or a single pinna), which are petiolate, sub-opposite, and inclined up- 

 wards ; pinncB 1-2 lines long, membranaceous, broadly oblong, narrowest 

 downwards, costa stout, not reaching to the margin, apex very obtuse and 

 margin there entire, sides of pinnae laciniated or slashed, teeth 3-5 on a side, 

 long, acuminate, falcate, and only of the cellular substance of the pinnge ; 

 involucre ob-conical, free on apex of short rhachis, li lines long, 1 line broad 

 at top, bearing a few scattered soft spinulose processes ; valves scarcely 

 roimded, divided less than half-way down, fimbriated with 14-17 translucent 

 flexuose and subulate long green teeth or cilia wholly composed of cellular 

 tissue (a truly beautiful object under a microscope) ; receptacle included, or 

 slightly protruding in age. 



Hab. — On cliffs, Presei'vation Inlet ; on rocks, Eesolution Island ; and 

 on rocks at the Bealey, J. D, Enys ; hills round Lyttelton Harbour, West- 

 land, coast south of Hokitika, etc. 



This very minute fern (probably the smallest of the many small com- 

 forms of Hymenojyhyltun} , and perhaps the smallest of all truly pinnate 

 ferns) has been long known to me, but only through kind friends and corre- 

 spondents ; for, although I have received a copious supply of specimens 

 both dried and living, I have never gathered it myself. It has always been 



