878 Transactions. — Botany. 



and drawings with dissections. Notwithstanding Sir W. J. Hooker, in 

 his celebrated " Species FiHcum," (piibhshed some fifteen years after), 

 inckided it under H. tunhriclgehense, as a mere synonym of that plant, not 

 even allowing it to he a variety ! And more lately, Baker (of Kew), in his 

 •' Synopsis Filicum," has only tardily admitted it to a place, as a species, 

 in the Appendix to that work. Bentham in the last volume of the " Flora 

 Australiensis," has included it therein — but only as having been found on 

 one spot, on Lord Howe's Island. Can it be, that this little fern (H. mini- 

 vium), is both a littoral plant and a lover of rocky islets ? All present book 

 evidence tends that way. D'Urville may have originally found it on one of 

 the many islets or cliffy headlands in Tasman's Bay. And here it is to be 

 noted, in passing, that while the precise spot is given of not a few of the 

 New Zealand plants discovered by the French on that occasion, all mention 

 of such is omitted under the full description of this one ; — Crescit in Nova 

 Zeelandia — is all that is said. 



Another error occurs concerning it in the " Hand Book," which it may 

 be well to notice. (Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, seel magis arnica Veritas.) 

 There it is said to have a " frond 1-2 inches high," which is further des- 

 cribed as if possessing (several) "involucres." Baker, however, (I.e.) 

 rightly describes its " frond as being |^-f inches long," but "with several 

 close-spreading distinctly-toothed 2^inna! (?), the upper simple ligulate, the 

 lower often forked ;" and so Bentham (/. c) — " frond ^-^ inch long, deeply 

 divided into 5-8 simple or bifid segments," addmg, however, " sori, usually 

 one only to each frond," — as if he had seen more. 



Therefore, seeing there is such great disparity between those descrip- 

 tions, as well as omission of some of its more peculiar specific characters 

 (and as H. minimum, vera, is still unknown to me as a New Zealand fern, 

 and wishing to direct the attention of collectors in the Southern Island to 

 it), I will just give (in English) the main part of A. Eichard's original 

 description of it (the original type specimens) from his botanical work 

 (supra) : — 



" Plant very small ; root creeping ; frond scarcely ^ inch long, erect, 

 solitary, stipitate, pinnatifid ; colour lurid red ; lowermost pair of segments 

 greatly divided, obtuse, much serrated ; segments folded lengthwise ; invo- 

 lucre solitary, terminal, oblong, obtuse, semi-bivalve ; margins of valves 

 toothed (clentatus)." 



And then the several drawings of his plant accompanying his descrip- 

 tion fully bear him out ; for he has carefully given no less than five full- 

 sized fronds, four of them singly arising from the same rhizome, and all 

 remarkably alike, and quite symmetrical. And not only so, but from them 

 we gain other important characters, each pinnatifid frond possessing five 



