Blechnum. | FILICES. 59 
Veins iree, close, parallel, usually forked at the base. Fertile pinnae very 
narrow- linear, distant, 3-9 in. long, $74! in. broad, usually on separate 
fronds, but often mixed with sterile pinnae or the pinnae partly fertile 
and partly sterile. Indusium broad, membranous, lacerate-——Lomaria 
capensis Willd. Sp. Plant. v (1810) 291; F. Muell. Veg. Chat. Is. (1864) 
72; Benth. Fl. Austral. vii (1878) 737. LL. procera Spreng. Syst. Veg. iv 
(1827) 65; A. Cunn. Precur. (1836) n. 182; Raoul Chorix (1846) 37; Hook. 
Ic. Plant. t. 427-28; Sp. Fil. iti (1860) 22; Garden Ferns, t. 53; Hook. 
jf. #1. Antarct. i (1844) 110; Fl. Nov. Zel. ii (1855) 27; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 
(1864) 366; Hook. and Bak. Syn. Fil. (1873) 179; Thoms. N.Z. Ferns 
(1882) 67; Meld N.Z. Ferns (1890) 107, t. 2, f. ie 14; Cheesem. Man. 
N.Z. Fl. (1906) 980. LL. latifolia Col. in Tasm. Journ, Nat. Scr. 11 (1846) 
175. L. dupheata Potts in Trans. N.Z. Inst. ix (1877) 491. Stegania 
procera R. Br. Prodr. (1810) 153; A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. (1832) 86, t. 13. 
Osmunda capensis Linn. Mant. (1771) 306. OQ. procera Forst. f. Prodr. 
(1786) n, 414. tte? 
, 
Bs minor Hove f. Fl. Nov. Zel. ii (1855 1-3 ft. high, dark olive- 
green ; fertile fronds usually exceeding the sterile, ‘Sterile pinnae few, 4-8 pairs, short, 
broad, linear-oblong, the lowermost hardly shorter than the one above it, upper often 
adnate.—Stegania minor R. Br. Prodr. (1810) 153. 
KERMADEC+ISLANDS, NorRTH AND Soutu Isuanps, CuarnHam ISLANDS, STEWART 
ISLAND, AUCKLAND AND CAMPBELL Istanps, AnTIPoDzES IsLAND: Abundant throughout, 
ascending to 4000 ft. 
A very widely distributed species. From Australia and Tasmania it extends 
northwards to Malaya, and is common in many of the Pacific islands. In America it 
ranges from the south of Chile northwards to Mexico and the West Indies. It is also 
found in South Africa. In New Zealand it occurs in all soils and situations, and, 
although attaining its greatest luxuriance in deep forest ravines, is plentiful in open 
swamps and gullies, and even not averse to bare hillsides or the clefts of rocky peaks. 
At first it is difficult to believe that the small forms found in exposed places, often not 
more than 6in. high, with 3-4 pairs of pinnae, can belong to the same species as the 
huge specimens growing on moist cliffs in shaded ravines, in which the fronds are 
sometimes 8—-l0ft. long, with more than 40 pairs of pinnae. But every gradation 
of size exists, and one form can be traced directly into the other. Hooker’s var. minor 
is, however, more distinct, and in some respect approaches Blechnum vulcanicum. It 
has a different habit of growth, and possibly ‘should be maintained as a distinct ispecies. 
In nearly all the species of Lomaria the fertile fronds are sometimes irregularly 
mixed with sterile pinnae, but in none is this so commonly seen as in B. capense. Some- 
times one side of the frond may be fertile and the opposite side sterile, or the sterile and 
fertile pinnae may be irregularly mixed. Or sometimes the upper half of the frond 
may be fertile and the lower sterile, or vice versa. It is also quite common for the pinnae 
themselves to be partly fertile and partly sterile. The frond is also occasionally once or 
twice dichotomously forked, constituting Mr. Potts’s Lomaria duplicata, and sometimes 
the tips of the fronds are regularly crested. 
10. B. filiforme Hitingsh. Denkschr. Ak. Wren (1864) 21.—Rhizome long, 
stout, branched, climbing up trees to a great height, clothed with squarrose 
scales. Sterile fronds very numerous, scattered along the rhizome, pinnate 
throughout, of two forms; those on the ground or on the lower part of 
the aes small, 3-6in. long, 4-1 in. broad, linear or linear-lanceolate ; 
pinnae 4-4 in. long, oblong to orbicular- oblong, sharply and deeply toothed. 
Fronds from the upper part of the rhizome much larger, 1-23 ft. long, 
3-6 in. broad, lanceolate, pendulous, hardly coriaceous, dark-green, glabrous 
or more or less scaly along the rhachis and costae ; stipes short, scaly at 
the base. Pinnae numerous, 14-4 in. long, about Lin, broad, lanceolate, 
