DESCRIPTIONS OF N.Z. FERNS. 75 



and covering the sori. Foliage very narrow; in fa6l, mere veins with narrow wings. 

 Called by Moore, " Acrophorus hispidus." It occurs throughout the Colony. The 

 other form is a larger plant with triangular frond, wider foliage, and a stouter rhizome, 

 which creeps so slowly that the fern will take many years to outgrow a six-inch pot. 

 It also produces far more fronds than the other, and is altogether a handsomer plant. 

 Both are found in rich soil in damp places, and generally in heavy bush. They are 

 both easily cultivated in a greenhouse or case, but will not stand exposure to wind. 

 They require light vegetable mould, and plenty of moisture in the surrounding 

 atmosphere, but the second one less than the other. A third form was found by my 

 eldest son, some years ago, when surveying in what is known as the " Tuhua country," 

 at the head of the Wanganui river. Unfortunately, through the carelessness of the 

 man to whom they were entrusted, the whole of the specimens were lost, except the 

 pinna shown at plate XXVIII., No. 9, and it has been impossible to get others, owing 

 to the locality being included in what is called the " King country." My son described 

 the plant as producing its fronds so as to form a crown, and as having, in some 

 instances, a caudex several inches high. The foliage of the pinna is like that of the 

 form first described, but is far harsher, coarser, and more compaft. I suspect that, 

 when the plant is again met with, it will prove to be a form in which the rhizomes 

 have become thickened, and have assumed an erect mode of growth, like those of the 

 Australian Davallia pyxidata, and the African Davallia Canariensis, rather than a 

 truly arborescent fern. In the "Journal of Botany" for 1875, page 78, it is stated 

 that the New Zealand Davallia had been found growing wild on the lower stones of a 

 bridge over the river Swale, near Thirsk, in Yorkshire, in the previous year, it having 

 probably been carried thither from some garden by a flood. This shows how plants 

 introduced into a country may become accidentally acclimatised. The Australian 

 Stags-horn fern, Platycerium alcicorne, was similarly discovered, several years ago, 

 growing wild on Cadr Idris, a high mountain in North Wales, though no one could 

 tell how it got there. 



DAVALLIA TASMANI. (Da-val-le-a Tas-man-i.) 



PLATE XXIV., No. 5. 

 This is one of the latest additions to the list of New Zealand ferns, having been 

 found at the " Three Kings " islands, near the North Cape, in 1887, by Mr. T. F. 

 Cheeseman, F.L.S., curator of the Auckland Museum, to whom I am indebted for the 

 specimen figured in the plate. It belongs to the sub-genus " Eudavallia," which has 

 the involucres connected at the sides as well as the base, but open at the top, so as to 

 form a sort of flattened oval cup, containing the sorus, and is closely allied to the ferns 

 mentioned at the end of the last description. The rhizome is stout and creeping ; the 

 stipes long in proportion to the frond, light brown and smooth. Rachis and costae the 

 same, but narrowly winged, particularly at the junftions. The frond is broadly 



