Potts. — Xolcs o7i Fei'iif. B59 



expression would be foimd no longer applicable in many parts of the 

 country. 



Ahophila colensoi, Hook. 

 Perhaps the hardiest of our tree-fern group, it may be found in 

 mountainous districts, sometimes in very exposed places on the outskirts of 

 bush, at an altitude of from 2,000 feet to 3,000 feet. Trunk often absent 

 or prostrate, exposed or covered with soil, from two to four feet long. 

 Where fronds have been exposed to the rigour of severe winters, they 

 assume a rich cinnamon hue. Malvern Hills ; near mountain tops on 

 Banks Peninsula. 



HymenophyUum bivalve, Swartz. 

 On rocks or trees, in thick masses in bushy gullies, west of Mount 

 Somers ; also plentiful on Banks Peninsula. 



HymenopJiyllum javanicum, B]}veiig. 

 This filmy fern flourishes near waterfalls, often in a bed of moss 

 together with Polypodium grammitidis. Its habit is tufted, more so than is 

 usually the case with Hymenophyllacece. In rocky gullies near the Eakaia 

 Gorge; also westerly as far as the Havelock Eiver, at about 2,200 feet 

 above the sea. 



HymenophyUum malinyii, Mett. 

 One of the nearest habitats of this very peculiar fejp is amongst the 

 ranges of Banks Peninsula. As, under our present system of the adminis- 

 tration of lands, the peninsula forests v/ill probably be exterminated at no 

 distant date, perhaps the following notes may be worth recording. 



This fern usually occupies a dry place on a decaying limb or trunk of a 

 tree, at a distance of several feet fi-om the ground. We have found it on 

 Podocarpus totara, Libocednis doniana, etc., etc. From the similarity of 

 its varying tints and shades of greens, greys, and browns, it may be easily 

 mistaken for a patch of lichens. We have not met with it carrying its fronds 

 erect, as described in Hooker's "Handbook." Its pendent fi-onds form 

 thick imbricated masses ; its thick woolly tomentum enables it to catch and 

 retain moisture gathered from mountain fogs and mists ; its rough rhizome 

 creeps amongst and through the ragged strips of soft bark, and even 

 penetrates the bark itself. The young frond, where it shoots from the 

 rhizome, , has at the swollen base of the stipe a dense j)atch of hair or 

 scales ; the stipe itself is sparsely sprinkled with pale brown hairs. Just 

 below the rachis the tomentum is dense, as it is indeed over every part of 

 the frond. The growing frond soon loses its crozier state, uncurling into 

 a lunate form ; colour buf&sh, changing to greyish-green with a silvery 

 ghnt ; the terminal divisions with the sori orange-brown. Some of the 

 lower pinnae are darkish-green above, reddish-brown beneath. With the 



