DESCRIPTIONS OF N.Z. FERNS. "9 



VAR. SCLEROPIUM. (scle-ro-pe-um.) 

 Sometimes like one and sometimes like the other of the above, but has the teeth 

 much deepened (sometimes half-way to the costa) so as to form a fringe rather than 

 a serrated edge. It occurs only in the south of New Zealand, and in its most perfe6l 

 form in the Auckland Islands. 



VAR. LUCIDUM. (lu-sid-um.) 



PLATE XIII., No. 6. 



A very much larger plant than either of the above, being often four feet high, and 

 growing in the bush farther from the sea. It has broad, tapering, pointed pinnae with 

 generally rather deeply toothed edges. It is of a very bright glossy green (whence 

 the name) and very much thinner texture. The veins and sori, too, are more numerous 

 and closer together. This, however, and Var. obliquum, merge very gradually into 

 each other, the pinnae of both being obliquely set. In both, too, it is not unusual to 

 find a pinna or two with narrowly-sessile lobes at the base. 



VAR. PAUCI FOLIUM, (pau-sif-o-le-um.) 

 This is only a stunted form of Var. lucidum, with very few pinnae. It generally 

 occurs in tolerably open ground, among fern and manuka scrub or scrubby bush, 

 rather than in heavy bush. The young shoots of all the above are eaten by the Maoris. 



VAR. LYALLII. (Ly-al-le-i.) 



PLATES XXIII., No. 4, and XXV., No. 2. 

 This variety was formerly supposed to be confined to Nelson and Otago, but 

 occurs also in the Canterbury Province and Chatham Islands, and I found it some years 

 ago, growing in a hollow at Evans' Bay, Wellington, where several other plants of it 

 were procured afterwards, though it is probably extinft there now. It is a small plant 

 not more than fifteen to eighteen inches high, and only found close to the sea. It 

 creeps less than either of the other varieties; in faft, does Httle more than produce fresh 

 crowns around the original one, and thus, after a few years, forms a very handsome 

 compact plant, with a great many fronds. It is of a duller green than either of the 

 other varieties, and less glossy. The texture varies considerably, some plants being 

 nearly as thick as the typical A. obtusatum, and carrying their fronds ereft, while 

 others are as thin as Var. lucidum, and have drooping fronds. It has the lower portion 

 of its lower pinnae, and sometimes nearly the whole length of all of them, cut into deep 

 rounded, more or less narrowly sessile lobes, extending nearly to the rachis, and in its 

 extreme form is only distinguishable from Aspleniuni bulbiferum by its darker green 

 and straighter sori; in fact, it forms a connefting link between A. obtusatum and that 

 fern, and in the Synopsis is included in the same group as the latter, though it is 

 unquestionably only a form of A. obtusatum, the whole series of links being complete. 



