Puate 25. 
CYATHEA meputuaris, Sw. 
Lidible Cyathea. 
CyatHEa medullaris; arboreous; caudex. erect, stout, twelve to fourteen feet 
high, eight inches to a foot and more in diameter, dark-brown, almost black, 
below clothed with a dense mass of aerial descending radicles, above with 
the remains of former years’ stipites, crowned with a magnificent tuft of 
erecto-patent fronds, equal in length to the caudex (of which the stipites 
occupy two to three feet, are very stout, of a deep purplish-black, with a 
delicate glaucous bloom, strongly muricated, as is the rachis), broad ovate- 
lanceolate, coriaceous, three feet in diameter in the widest part, tripinnate, 
full-green, paler beneath; primary pinne from a broad petiolated base, 
oblong-lanceolate ; secondary ones lanceolate acuminate; pinnules linear- 
oblong, subfalcate, obtuse, toothed or lobato-pinnatifid ; sori at the forking 
of the veins in two rows, nearer the margin than the costule, which has 
ciliated, paleaceous scales beneath ; involucres globose, firm-membranace- 
oug, bursting irregularly at the top, leaving a ragged cup with an elevated 
receptacle. (The fronds when quite young are covered with a very thick and 
dense mass of long, soft, woolly, paleaceous hairs, which fall away as the 
frond gets perfectly developed.) 
CyaTHea medullaris. Sw. Syn. Fil. p. 140 and 866. Schk. Fil. p. 128. ¢. 133 
(good). Willd. Sp. Pl. v. 5. p. 494. Hook. Sp. Fil. v. 1. p. 27. A. Cunn. 
Prodr, Fl. Nov. Zel. in Hook. Comp. Bot. Mag. v. 2. p. 368. A. Rich. 
fl. N. Zeal. p. 77. Hook. fil. Fl. New Zeal. v. 2. p. 7. Bracken, Fil. 
Bot. United States Expl. Exp. p. 281. 
Potypopium medullare. Forst. Prodr. p. 82. Pl. Esc. p. 84. 
SPH#ZROPTERIS medullaris. Bernh. in Schrad. Journ. Bot. 1800, v. 1. p. 22. 
aie see 
CyatHea affinis. Sw. Syn. Fil. p. 141 (not of Schkuhr). 
PoLypopium affine. Forst. Prodr. p. 83. 
Cyatuea extensa. Sw. Syn. Fil. p. 189 and 364. Schk. Fil. p. 127. t. 132 
a-c (good, as representing the barren state and ciliated scales of the rachis 
beneath). 
ALSOPHILA extensa. Hook. and Arn. in Bot. of Beechey’s Voy. p. 716. 
CyatHea Mertensiana. Bongard, MS. in Herb. Imp. Acad. Petersb. and in 
Herb. Nostr. 
Has. New Zealand; Northern and Middle Islands, as far south as Akaroa, 
Forster, Raoul, Hooker fil. ete.; Norfolk Island, Forster (Endlicher). 
Pacific Islands, Forster; Otaheite, Duperrey; Pitcairn’s Island, Cuming, 
n. 1998, Mathews, n. 1; New Guinea, Barclay; Bonin, Dr. Mertens ; 
Coral Islands, Beechey ; island of Aneiteum, Raoul ; and Kermadee Islands, 
Milne and Macgillivray ; “ caudex arborescent, one foot in diameter.” 
Grand and striking as are the Tree-Ferns in general, the pre- 
JULY Ist, 1861. 
