880 Transactions. — Botany. 



type specimen as first published by A. Eichard, but also from what is 

 recorded of it by our English botanists. 



Therefore, I have concluded to bring it forward, and so make it known 

 to botanists and also to collectors, for without doubt it would form a choice 

 and elegant garden fern, provided the proper culture could be given it. 



Dr. Hooker, in his " Handbook New Zealand Flora," says of H. scabrum : 

 " Stipes and rhachis brisily, frond dark green, involucres orbiculate, etc. ;" 

 and Mr. Baker, in his S7jnopsis Filicum, where he has placed it in the section 

 of Hymenophyllum, having "glabrous fronds," says of it: "Stipes and 

 main rachis ciliated with long brown brisily hairs, involucres small," etc. ; 

 and in an additional remark mentions its " hairy rhachis as forming a link 

 between the glabrous and truly hirsute species ;" and Mr. J. Smith (who 

 had often and that for a long period had the great advantage of seeing H. 

 scahricm in a living state at Kew) places it, in his most recent work on ferns 

 (Historia Filicum) in the section of Hymenophyllum, having their " fronds 

 glabrous and stipes and rhachis rarely pilose.'' All this, however, does not 

 agree with the characters of this very villous variety ; and just so it is 

 with the descriptions and botanical plate of H. scabrum by A. Eichard 

 (supra) . 



Its copious large-jointed hairs form such a striking object, even to the 

 naked eye (while under a microscope they are most beautiful !), and together 

 with its densely hirsute ribs, veins, and veinlets, extending all over the 

 frond, and large light-green open involucral valves, give this variety a most 

 striking appearance. 



? Pteeis Lomakioides. 

 Sti2)e (upper part only) 5 in. long, ? erect, straight, slender, naked, 

 smooth, channelled above, straw coloured ; /ro7id G^ in. long, 5 in. broad, 

 symmetrical, broadly round cordate (in outline), pedate, smooth, glabrous, 

 very membranaceous, semi-transparent, colour (dry) a light olive-green, 

 pinnate, two pairs only, and one long terminal segment 5J in. long, 10 lines 

 broad, petiolate, linear-lanceolate (together with pinnse) decreasing but 

 little and very gradually downwards, sub-accuminate acute ; pinncB opposite, 

 linear-lanceolate oblique obtuse, the two pairs 1 in. apart on rhachis, 

 upper pair sub-sessile and slightly decurrent on lower side, 3 | in. long, 

 9 lines broad ; lower pair petiolate and pedate, slightly decurrent on upper 

 side B^ in. long, and 8 lines broad, lowermost pedate segments If in. long, 

 6 lines broad, sub-sessile, dimidiate, and curved upwards, all four pinnse in- 

 clined inwards and upwards ; veins regular and parallel, conspicuous, fine, 

 pretty close (about 2^ to a line), free and simply forked with clavate apices 

 terminating within the margin, which is slightly cartilaginous and crenulate, 

 and closely and finely serrulate, particularly towards and at apices of pinn» 



