Gleichenra. | FILICES. QT 
Norts Istanp: Auckland—Not uncommon by the side of streams, &c., from the 
North Cape to the Bay of Islands and Great Barrier Island, rare and locai southwards 
to the Kauaeranga River (Thames) and the Manukau Harbour. 
Also in Australia, ranging from Queensland to Tasmania, and in New Caledonia. 
Mr. Colenso’s G. littoralis is certainly nothing more than a dwart state, usually 
“| 
5. Ge linearis.C. B. Clarke in Trans. Linn, Soc. i, 2d. series (1880) 
428.—Usually from 2-4 ft. high, but sometimes dwarfed to a few inches, 
and occasionally reaching 6 ft. Rhizome long, slender, clothed with narrow 
reddish-brown bristly scales. Stipes slender, smooth and polished. Fronds 
repeatedly dichotomous or trichotomous, the ultimate branches ending 
in a pair of pinnae 3-12in. long; a pair of smaller spreading or deflexed 
pinnae is also placed at the base of the lower forks. Pinnae lanceolate, 
acuminate, pinnatifid almost to the base. Segments close, spreading, 
4-1in. long, linear, entire, obtuse or emarginate, glaucous beneath and 
sometimes pubescent on the costa, firm or more or less membranous, pale- 
ereen. Veins transversely spreading from the costa, each one pinnately 
divided from near the base into 3-6 veinlets. Sori solitary on an exterior 
veinlet, of 6-12 sporangia.—Hook. Sp. Fil. i (1846) 12; Hook. and Bak. 
Syn. Fil. (1873) 15; Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. (1864) 747; Benth. FI. 
Austral. vii (1878) 698; Thoms. N.Z. Ferns (1882) 27; Field N.Z. Ferns 
(1890) 39, t. 4, f. 1; Cheesem. Man. N.Z. Fl. (1906) 1020. G. Hermanni 
R. Br. Prodr. (1810) 161. Mertensia dichotoma Willd. in Vet. Akad. Handb. 
(1804) 167. Polypodium dichotomum Thunb. Fl. Jap. (1784) 338, t. 37. 
Polypodium lineare Burm. Fl. Ind. (1768) 235, t. 67. 
Nortu Istanp: Auckland—In heated soil near hot springs; Rotomahana, 
Captain G. Mair! T. Kirk! (in this locality destroyed by the eruption of Tarawera in 
1886); Otumakokori and Orakeikorako, 7. Kirk! T. F. C.; Karapiti, Hochstetter ; 
Wairakei, Norton / Field, T. F.C. ; hot springs near Matata, Captain G. Mair. Sea- 
level to 1600 ft. : 
Almost universal in tropical and subtropical countries. Forster, in his “ Esculent 
Plants ” (p. 75), recorded it as a native of New Zealand, and stated that the roots were 
eaten by the Natives; but as he only collected in the South Island it is extremely 
improbable that he ever saw it in New Zealand, and there is no other record of the roots 
being eaten. 
34. SCHIZAEA Smith. 
Rhizome short, thick, creeping. Stipes rigid, wiry, erect. Fronds 
simple or forked or dichotomously branched, flat or terete, very narrow, 
without expanded laminae. Sori on the under-surface of fertile segments 
terminating the frond or its branches, each segment consisting of a number 
of crowded linear pinnae, those of the opposite sides being usually applied 
to one another so as to conceal the under-surface. Sporangia ovoid, sessile, 
splitting vertically, crowned by a complete transverse ring, arranged in 2 
or rarely 4 rows on the under-surface of the pinnae of the fertile segments, 
A small genus of about 25 species, dispersed through the tropical or warm temperate 
regions of both hemispheres. Two of the New Zealand species are widely distributed ; 
the third extends to Australia alone. 
Fronds smooth, terete or nearly so, undivided .. a .. I. 8. fistulosa, 
Fronds scabrous, terete or obscurely compressed, forked or rarely 
twice or three times forked ws : 2. S. bifida, 
Fronds smooth, compressed, repeatedly dichotomously forked, 
flabellate 3. S. dichotoma. 
