GLEICHENIACE.&. 293 



Stipe smooth, together vrith the rhachis, flat ahove, slightly mar- 

 gined. Fronds glabrous, coriaceous, bipinnate, and (with the stipes) 6 to 

 8 feet high. Pinnae large, 3 to 4 feet long, by 20 inches broad, oppo- 

 site, spreading at right angles to the rhachis. Pinnules alternate, 

 seated on a short petiole, linear -lanceolate, acuminate, deeply pinnatifid. 

 Segments linear-oblong, entire, sorneichat glaucous beneath, and having 

 forked veins. Sporangia 3 or 4 in a sorus. 



The habit of this species is very much that of the preceding; from 

 which it differs principally in its fronds being much larger, and not so 

 glaucous beneath, in the longer pinnules, seated on a short footstalk, 

 and in the absence of the crested appendages. Like that species, 

 it forms dense and almost impenetrable thickets along the slopes of 

 the ridges which jut oft' from the higher mountain ranges of the 

 Sandwich Islands; reminding us very much of the entangled masses 

 of Pteris esculenta, at New Zealand. 



* * Frondes cU^tricJwtomce, divisionibus pinnatis, segmentis in stipitem furcatum decur- 



rentibus. 



3. Mertensia flabellata, Presl. 



Mertensia flabellata , Presl, Tent. Ptcricl. p. 51. 



Gleichenia fiabellata, R. Br. Prodr. Fl. Nov. Holl. p. 161 j A. Cunn. in Hook. 

 Conjp. Bot. Mag. 2, p. 3G1; Hook. Spec. Fil. 1, p. 6. 



Hab. Vicinity of Port Jackson, New South Wales. Bay of Islands, 

 New Zealand. 



The tips of the branches are not so caudate in the New Zealand 

 plant as in that from New South Wales. In the latter, also, the 

 rhachis is slightly pubescent. 



4. Mertensia acutifolia. 



Gleichenia acutifolia, Hook. Spec. Fil. 1, p. 7, t. 8, A, opt. 



Hab. Orange Harbour, Tierra del Fuego. 



74 





