DESCRIPTIONS OF N.Z. FERNS. ii7 



ASPLENIUM FALCATUM. (As-ple-ne-um fal-ca-tum.) 



PLATE XXI., No. 5. 



This fern, which is also called " Asplenium polyodon," is found from end to end 

 of New Zealand, but not far inland or at anv great elevation, though it is said to have 

 been met with up to 2000 feet in the north of the Colony. It also grows in South 

 Africa, India, Ceylon, Malacca, and thence southward through Polynesia and Australia. 

 It varies in form in different localities ; that found in New Zealand being what is known 

 as variety " Forsteri," with the pinnae broad at the bottom and rather deeply lobed and 

 toothed. It, however, differs very considerably in different places, so much so, as to 

 make it doubtful, in some cases, whether it should not bear another name. It is 

 usually found growing among moss and other vegetation, in the forks of trees, on 

 rotten logs, or on roots, seldom if ever on the ground itself, unless among moss in 

 crevices of rocks. It is pretty abundant in bushes near the coast, and easily grown 

 in leaf-mould or rotten wood. When young, it bears a very strong resemblance to 

 Asplenium flabellifolium, but the fronds are shorter, the texture far thinner, and the 

 colour a lighter green. 



It has a short, stout, slowly-creeping, scaly rhizome, producing numerous fronds. 

 The stipes is long, stout, ere6t, dark-coloured, sometimes smooth and sometimes 

 slightly velvety or hairy. Rachis the same. Frond long-oblong, or lanceolate, 

 pinnate. The pinnae are numerous, stalked, dark-green, coriaceous, and very peculiar 

 in form, owing to their being unequally divided. The lower side slopes very gradually 

 away from the stalk, and then tapers, being comparatively narrow throughout, while 

 that above the costa widens out at once into a more or less rounded auricle or lobe, 

 and then contracts and becomes tapering like the other. Both sides are lobed and 

 toothed. The upper surface is usually rather glossy, and the under one lighter-coloured 

 and sub-tomentose. The sori are arranged in lines, radiating more or less from the 

 stalk. Involucres membranous. 



The above is the usual form of the fern, but sometimes the large lobe on the 

 upper side of the pinna is almost wanting; that side being merely a little wider and 

 more suddenly widened at its base than the other. Sometimes, again, the point of the 

 pinna is much prolonged, so as to form a sort of tail, and approximate very closely to 

 the next species. At Christchurch, again, I lately saw at a Horticultural show, a 

 plant marked " Asplenium falcatum," which had not only no large lobes on the upper 

 side of its pinnae, but was of a bright shining green colour and thick texture, so like 

 "Asplenium obtusatum, variety obliquum," that I thought it was wrongly named, till I 

 examined the sori, and found that they radiated from the stalk. As I had to leave by 

 steamer the same evening, I was unable toascertainto whom it belonged, or from whence 

 it came. It may, of course, have been an imported plant, but it was at any rate distind 

 in appearance from any form of Asplenium falcatum that I had previously seen. 



