DESCRIPTIONS OF N.Z. FERNS. 



one and half inches broad, pinnatifid ; lobes four to five pairs, short, opposite, oblong, 

 nine lines long, five lines broad, very obtuse, spreading, rugulose, close and slightly over- 

 lapping, glabrous (not glossy) on upper surface, largely and finely pilose on under surface 

 and on rachis; hairs hyaline, jointed, margined, puckered, much veined, veins con- 

 spicuous, much branched, extending to margin, clavate, red; margins white, cartilaginous 

 and recurved, undulate and slightly crenulate, denticulate, closely ciliate; the lowest pair 

 of lobes cut nearly to rachis, and shorter than the pair above them, and much broader 

 tn the lower basal portion, which is cordate sub-auricled and divergent ; the upper 

 lobes cut about half way to rachis : the terminal lobe large, broad, sub-ovate-acuminate, 

 the base once crenately lobed, tip truncate. Stipes three inches long, channelled (also 

 rachis), flexuous ; the upper part very slender, almost filiform, straw-coloured, finely 

 hairy, hairs patent ; the lower portion much compressed, flat, dark brown, sub- 

 scaberulous. Scales subulate lanceolate, much acuminate, three-quarter inches long, 

 red brown, glossy, finely striate : margins slightly and distinctly denticulate ; cells 

 numerous, linear-oblong." 



Mr. Colenso savs, " It is scarcely allied to any known New Zealand, Australian, or 

 Polynesian species. In its soft herbaceous charafter it approaches L. nigra ; in its 

 pilose character (slightly) L. vulcanica ; in the position and shape of its lobes ( but 

 again only very slightly) L. discolor. Unfortunately, a fruitful frond has not been 

 seen, and my only specimen appears to have been broken off at some distance above 

 the ground, being quite clean and free from earthly particles." In a letter to myself, 

 he says he has in vain offered a reward for a fertile frond. Anyone visiting Tongariro 

 should seek for the plant, which I have drawn from the description ; but which I think 

 may prove to be a stunted Alpine form of L. discolor, taken from a very young plant, 

 as I have seen somewhat similar fronds of that fern from near Mount Egmont, with 

 equally long stipites. 



LOMARIA ATTENUATA. (Lo-ma-re-a At-ten-u-a-ta.) 

 This fern is pretty widely spread throughout the Southern Hemisphere, being 

 found in Africa from the Gulf of Guinea to the Cape, in America from the West Indies 

 and Guatemala to Brazil and Juan Fernandez, in the Mauritius and neighbouring 

 islands, in Polynesia, and at Norfolk Island. The northern part of New Zealand 

 seems to mark its southern limit at this part of the Globe, as it is only reported from 

 the Little Barrier Island, in the Hauraki Gulf, where it was gathered by Herr Reischek, 

 the German naturalist ; and yet from its similarity to other N.Z. Lomarias, it may very 

 possibly occur elsewhere, but have escaped notice. It has a long horizontal rhizome 

 densely clothed at the end with narrow bright brown scales. The fronds form crowns 

 the fertile pinnae standing erect within the barren ones. The stipes is short, erect 

 slightly scaly at base but naked above. Rachis also naked. Frond broadly ovate 



