44 FILICES. | Diplazium. 
pinnate, free except in the sections Anisogonium or Hemidictyum. Sori 
linear, along opposite sides of many of the veins, each side having an 
indusium of its own. Sporangia stalked, girt by an incomplete vertical 
ring 
g. 
A genus of nearly 200 species, widely diffused in the tropics of both hemispheres. 
J. D. japonicum Bedd. Ferns Brit. Ind. Suppl. (1876) 12,—Rhizome 
“long, slender, creeping, branched, densely scaly at the tip. Stipes 3-9 in. 
long, slender, pale-brown or straw-coloured, scaly when young, especially 
near the base. Fronds 6—12 in. long without the stipes, 24-5 in. broad, ovate- 
lanceolate, long-acuminate, pale-green, thin and membranous, glabrous 
on both surfaces or sprinkled with a few weak hairs, pinnate below, 
pinnatifid towards the apex ; rhachis slender, slightly scaly. Pinnae spread- 
ing, rather distant, 14-3 in. long, lanceolate, acuminate, deeply pinnatifid ; 
lobes about 41in. long, close, oblong, obtuse, slightly toothed or nearly 
entire. Veins pinnate in the lobes; veinlets 4-6 on each side, simple or 
forked. Sori linear-oblong, usually occupying all the veinlets, reaching two- 
thirds of the distance from the midrib to the margin, the lowest one in each 
lobe usually diplazioid.—Asplenium japonicum Thunb. Fl. Jap. (1784) 334 ; 
Hook. and Bak, Syn. Fal. (1873) 234; Benth. Fl. Austral. vi (1878) 750 ; 
Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxii (1890) 448; Man. N.Z. Fl. (1906) 996. 
A. Schkuhrii Hook. Sp. Fel. in (1860) 251. 
_ KerRMADEC IsLANDS: Ravines on Sunday Island, not common, 7’. Ff. C., W. &. B. 
Oliver ! Nortu Istanp: Auckland—Banks of the Awanui River (near Kaitaia), 
R. H. Matthews! H. Carse! Okura River (Bay of Islands), Miss Clarke! Waiaruhia 
River (Bay of Islands), 7. H. Trevor! Northern Wairoa River, G. H. Smith! 
This appears to be a widely distributed species, ranging through Polynesia to the 
Malay Archipelago, India, China, and Japan. It is possible that Mr. Kirk’s A. wmbrosum 
var. tenuifolium (Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxiii (1891) 424), of which I have seen no specimens, 
may be identical with it. 
18. ASPLENIUM Linn. 
Rhizome usually short and thick, more rarely long and creeping. 
Fronds tufted at the top of the rhizome or scattered, stipitate, pinnate or 
2-3-pinnate or decompound, simple and entire ina few species not found 
in New Zealand. Venation variable, free in the great mass of the species, 
including those found in New Zealand. Sori linear or oblong, placed upon 
the veins, more or less oblique with respect to the costa, remote from the 
margin or close to it when the frond is much divided. Indusium the same: 
shape as the sorus, attached by its side to the vein, straight or rarely 
curved, flat or tumid, opening towards the costa. Sporangia stalked, sur- 
rounded by an incompiete vertical ring, bursting transversely. 
Aspleniwm is one of the largest genera of Ferns, containing about 350 species, dis- 
tributed through both the tropical and temperate regions of the world. Of the 13. 
species found in New Zealand 3 appear to be endemic, another is found elsewhere only 
in Australia, the remaining 9 are widely spread. The New Zealand species present 
exceptional difficulties to the student, on account of their extreme variability and the 
manner in which several of them are connected by intermediate forms. Thus A. obtu- 
satum and A. lucidum not only run into one another, but are connected by transitional 
varieties with A. bulbiferum and A. flaccidum. A. Richardi almost merges into 
A. flaccidum on the one side and A. Hookerianum on. the other, while A. bulbiferum and 
A. flaccidum, distinct enough in their ordinary states, are almost united by some of 
their aberrant varieties. With such a complex network of variation it is not surprising 
that the species are difficult of limitation and their characters arbitrary. 
