40 FILICES. [Leptolepia. 
secondary about the same shape, pinnate below, pinnatifid at the tips. 
Pinnules about $1n. long, ovate-lanceolate, deeply pinnatifid; ultimate 
segments or lobes very narrow, acute. Sorl very numerous, placed at the 
tip of a short lateral veinlet on the lobes of the pinnules. Indusium 
broadly ovate or almost orbicular, membranous, jagged, attached to the 
tip of the vein under the sorus, its sides quite free—Davallia novae- 
zelandiae Col. in Tasm. Journ. Nat. Sci. i (1846) 182; Hook. Sp. Fal. i 
(1846) 158, t. 518; Garden Ferns, 51; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. ii (1855) 19; 
Handb. N.Z. Fl. (1864) 358; Hook. and Bak. Syn. Fil, (1873) 91; 
Thoms. N.Z. Ferns (1882) 49; Field N.Z, Ferns (1890) 74, t. 18, £. 2; 
Cheesem. Man. N.Z. Fl. (1906) 956. D. hispida Heward mss. ex Sp. Fil. i 
(1846) 158. Acrophorus hispidus Moore in Proc. Linn. Soc. ii (1854) 286. 
NortuH AND SoutH IstaAnps: In woods from the Bay of Islands southwards to 
Foveaux Strait, but often local. Sea-level to 2000 ft. 
A very handsome and distinct species, with an unusually finely cut frond. It 
has been referred by turns to the genera (or divisions of Davallia) Leucostegia, 
Microlepia, and Acrophorus, and has finally been made the type of a new genus by 
Mettenius. : 
4. DAVALLIA Smith. 
Rhizome stout and wide-creeping, paleaceous. Stipes always articulated 
on the rhizome. Fronds in the majority of the species ample, 3-4-pinnate, 
more rarely pinnate or bipinnate; texture usually coriaceous. Veins 
simple or forked, free. Sori close to or at the margin of a segment of the 
frond, terminating a vein or veinlet. Indusium attached by both its base 
and sides, open at the top, narrow cup-shaped or cylindrical. Sporangia 
numerous, girt by an incomplete vertical ring, bursting transversely. 
In this work I have limited the genus Davallia to the meaning attached to it by 
Diels and Christensen. It still contains, however, the sections Hudavallia, Leucostegia, 
Prosaptia, and Scyphularia of the “‘ Synopsis Filicum,’? and thus includes between 
50 and 60 well-authenticated species. These are mostly distributed in the tropics of 
the Eastern Hemisphere ; but the centre of the genus is doubtless in the Polynesian 
and Malayan archipelagos. The single New Zealand species is closely allied to the 
Madeiran and Canary Island D. canariensis. 
[Davallia Forsteri Carruthers is a name applied to Forster’s Adiantum clavatwm, 
a plant said to have been gathered in Dusky Sound during Cook’s second voyage, but 
not since observed. Mr. Baker remarks that it is very close to the Polynesian 
Odontosoria scoparia ; and Mr. W. R. B, Oliver, who has recently compared Forster’s 
Specimens with that plant, informs me that the two are identical. In all probability 
there has been an accidental admixture of specimens. ] 
1, D. Tasmani Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxiii (1891) 416.— 
Rhizome long, stout, as thick as the finger, wide-creeping, densely clothed 
with chestnut-brown subulate ciliated scales. Stipes strong, rigid, smooth, 
3-9in. long. Fronds 4-12in. long, 3-9 in. broad, broadly deltoid or 
pentagonal, very thick and coriaceous, quite smooth and _ glabrous, 
2-3-pinnatifid. Lower pinnae much the largest, broadly deltoid or 
thomboidal; upper narrower, ovate or lanceolate. Pinnules oblong, 
cut down nearly to the base into 6-9 segments; segments short, oblong, 
obtuse. Sori very numerous, usually one to each segment, marginal, 
the segment usually produced on the outer side into a stout projecting 
horn. Indusium narrow cup-shaped, attached by the sides as well as the 
