336 Transactions. — Botany. 



a light-brown scarious appearance : ovary large for the plant, ovate obtuse, 

 succulent, green, slightly marked above with three sutures : style, o : stigma 

 sessile, trifid, finely penicillate and spreading : anthers (infertile) opposite 

 segments, long and linear, almost subulate. 



Hab. — In the forests about Kopua and Norsewood, North Island, 1878- 

 1881 : flowering in December. Often found in a leafing state on trees and 

 logs, but perfect specimens are rarely met within reach. This, however, in 

 those parts, is mainly owing to the settlers' cattle, which seem very fond of 

 this plant, apparently preferring it to much other good green food around. 



This is an interesting little species, by far the smallest of all the epiphy- 

 tical ones of this genus ; and, indeed, the smallest of all our known New 

 Zealand ones, save the smaller alpine one (A. linearis), found by me on the 

 summits of the Euahine mountain range ; * and by Dr. Sir Jos. Hooker in 

 Auckland and Campbell Islands. This species is so very distinct, that 

 (although I have not yet detected a perfect male plant) I have ventm'ed to 

 describe it from the female ones. Some leafing states of it remind one at 

 first sight of a large s^Decies of Luzula. 



Class III. Cryptogamia. 

 Order 1. FILICES. 

 Genus 22. Polypodium, Linn. 

 Polypoclium (^Grammitis) paradoxum, n. sp. 



Plant small, csespitose, suberect, 4-6-fronded, with a compact mass of 

 large light-brown scales at base; roots many, long, filiform, rich dark-brown 

 and very hairy ; fronds thin, submembranaceous, sub-sessile, linear-lanceo- 

 late or ligulate, subfalcate, very obtuse at apices, 2-3^ inches long, l-\\ 

 lines broad (broadest part about middle), decreasing very gradually quite to 

 base, light-green above, lighter below, villous on both sides with long red- 

 dish hairs, margin entire but slightly undulated, ciliated with stout long red 

 hairs; midrib black-purple, flexuose, scarcely continued to apex; veins alter- 

 nate, rather distant, simple, and only once forked on the inside, not pro- 

 duced to the edge ; sort separate, oblique on inner fork of veins, rather 

 nearer the midrib than the margin, rich red-brown, from close to apex down- 

 wards throughout two-thirds length of the frond, at first linear-oblong after- 

 wards elliptic, completely hidden by long villous adpressed whitish hairs 

 growing from each side of the sori and permanent ; scales, at base, large, 

 ovate-acuminate, 1-1^ lines long, thin, shining, finely reticulated, chesnut- 

 brown. 



* Not, however, " in swamps" ("Handbook New Zealand Flora," p. 284), but on the 

 open hill-tops, with Caltha, Euphrasia revoluta and antarctica, Myrsine nummulari- 

 folia, etc. 



