84 
New Zealand Ferns 
and a little blue pigment when mixing the colours on 
her palette. As the leaf matures this soft virginal colour 
gives place to a darker green — a more weather-beaten 
shade. There is something free and bold about the 
contour of the leaf, so very distinctive that one can 
recognise the species from a single barren leaflet. The 
curious seeds protrude so far beyond the cup-shaped 
vessel in which they rest as to be plainly visible on the 
upper side of the leaf. 
The botanist responsible for the naming of this rare 
fern does not seem to have been endowed with much 
imagination, for here, if anywhere, was room for its dis- 
play. Does the name advertise its extreme rarity, the 
lovely colour, the elegant outline of the frond, or the very 
unusual shape of the seeds? Nothing of the sort; it is 
merely “Cunningham’s fern with the oblique band,” in 
allusion to a microscopic peculiarity of the seeds, and to 
the man who first recorded its discovery. With all due 
respect to the great botanist, the discovery of this fern 
was no very wonderful feat; it might have discovered 
itself by hitting him in the face, as was my case. Why 
should this remarkable fern be cumbered with a name 
suggesting so little of interest? It is no answer to say 
that a name is of no importance ; not only is a good name 
as easy to invent as a bad one, but it is much easier to 
remember. 
