98 NATIVE FLOWERS OF VICTORIA. 
This has prickly stems and much broader foliage. 
Cyathea medullaris, is a taU species with a narrow 
trunk, almost jet black. This is not common. 
The number of species of various ferns that may 
be found in one limited area, is almost incredible. On 
one occasion, at Bell Bird Creek, far away in East 
Gippsland, 1 collected forty-four species in an area 
of little more than one acre. This, of course, is rather 
in excess of what may usually be found, but one may 
easily collect twenty species in a fern locality. 
