DESCRIPTIONS OF JV.Z. FERNS. 39 



ultimate pinnae are peftinate, that is, are divided into deep segments or lobes like the 

 teeth of a comb. The segments are long, linear or oblong. The stipes is forked, or 

 from development of axillary bud, proliferous and farther pinnated : pinnae very long 

 and pinnated, and pinnules deeply pinnatifid. 



GLEICHENIA (MERTENSIA) DICHOTOMA. (Glike-ne-a di-kot-om-a). 



PLATE IV. No. I. 



Rhizome creeping and slightly scaly. Stipes erect, smooth, and of a light brown 

 colour. At its top, rachides branch out right and left at an angle of about forty-five 

 degrees, so as to be about at right angles with each other. These often send off a 

 pinna on their outer sides, and shortly afterwards fork into ultimate pinnag. These 

 rachides are brown, and slightly scaly and woolly, particularly towards the forks. 

 The pinnae are lanceolate, and cut nearly to their costae, into long narrow taper 

 pinnules or segments, the edges of which are entire and bend slightly over toward the 

 sori, thus making them seem narrower still. The colour is pale bluish green below, 

 and darker green above. The sori are numerous, consisting of largish groups of cap- 

 sules (sometimes ten in a group), and are quite exposed. There are buds in the 

 axils, from which farther growths can arise under favourable circumstances. This fern 

 only occurs in the hot-spring country, where it grows in the steam of the boiling 

 springs, and in ground too hot to be comfortably handled. I gathered it on a steep 

 face beside, and amid the steam of, the White Terrace, and saw it a short distance 

 farther off, by the boiling mud flat, on a hill side which was burnt red with the volcanic 

 heat, and from which steam and sulphur vapour were issuing at every pore. These 

 plants were of course destroyed by the Eruption of June loth, 1886. The frond from 

 which the plate is drawn was gathered beside the great geyser at Wairakei. This fern 

 would need to be grown on top of a stove ; but could thus probably be cultivated. 

 The only difficulty would be to get it conveyed thither. This fern grows throughout 

 the tropical and sub-tropical regions of both hemispheres and in the Pacific islands as 

 far North as Japan. 



GLEICHENIA (MERTENSIA) CUNNINGHAMII. (Glike-ne-a Cun-ning-ham-i-i). 



THE N.Z. "umbrella FERN." 

 PLATE VII. Nos. 3aiid3a. 



Is only found in New Zealand. It has a rather stout creeping rhizome more or 

 less scaly. The stipes is slender, hard and ereft, and varies from black to very light 

 brown. It is slightly scaly, and much so towards the top. At the top it forks almost 

 horizontally right and left, and these branches immediately fork again and their 



