DESCRIPTIONS OF N.Z. FERNS. 85 



HYPOLEPIS MILLEFOLIA. (Hi-po-lep-is mil-le-fo-le-a.) 



PLATE III., No. 2. 



Has stout creeping rhizomes, which are smooth except by the bases of the stipites 

 where there are a few scales. Stipites scattered, ereft, smooth or very slightly hairy, 

 and straw-coloured or light brown. Fronds not more than eighteen inches long, rather 

 broadly ovate or lanceolate, and tri-pinnate. Pinnae and pinnules the same; the latter 

 deeply cut into long narrow teeth or lobes. Texture softly herbaceous with a few hairs 

 on the under side. Sori small, placed under reflexed edges among the lobes of the 

 pinnules. This is quite an Alpine form, and confined to New Zealand. The only 

 places in the North Island at which I beheve it has ever been gathered are beside the 

 ice-cold streams that flow from beneath the cones of Ruapehu and Mt. Egmont, but 

 it seems to occur all along the eastern side of the Southern Alps at high altitudes, 

 descending to about 1500 feet at Dunedin, and to even lower levels farther south. It 

 has been successfully acclimatised in the Botanical Gardens at Christchurch, 

 apparently by accident, and a plant (one of several) that I lately brought from 

 Dunedin seems thriving, though a number of plants, which I and other fern growers 

 have previously procured from there, and from Invercargill, have always died. 

 Probably I was more careful to seleft young plants, and to avoid injuring the rhizome 

 than most people would have been ; but plants which I have brought from Ruapehu 

 with equal or greater care, would not live. 



HYPOLEPIS DISTANS. (Hi-po-lep-is dis-tans.) 



PLATE XXVIII., No. 6. 



Hasarather slender, creeping, rough, scaly and woolly rhizome, producing scattered 

 fronds. Stipes four to six inches long, very slender, reddish brown, glossy yet rough 

 to the touch, but sometimes velvety in the northern forms. Rachis and costae the 

 same, but the latter shading gradually into the colour of the frond. Frond often three 

 to four feet long, narrowly oblong or tapering, and bi-pinnate. Pinnae far apart, and 

 growing in pairs at right angles to the rachis, narrow and tapering. Pinnules 

 generally oblong or oval, rather deeply cut into rounded lobes, with slightly toothed 

 edges. Sori small, apd placed in the indentations. Texture thin and herbaceous, yet 

 harsh to the touch : colour dark bright green. 



This fern is peculiar to New Zealand and the Chatham Islands, and was formerly 

 very common, but is now getting scarce in many localities, owing to the cattle 

 destroying it. It is occasionally, but rarely, found on rotten logs and stumps in bush 

 and grows very large in such situations, sometimes producing masses of interlacing 

 fronds ten feet in diameter. It is more commonly found, however, on the grass 

 tussocks in swamps, particularly on dead and rotting tussocks. I have also seen it on 

 mossy ground near Auckland, and at Rotorua it is very plentiful among the hot springs 

 and often grows in crevices of the stones, but in a stunted form. It is very easily 



