North and South Islands, Stewart Island: Damp hilly forests from the Thames and Te Aroha southwards, not common; local on the east side of the South Island. Sea-level to 3000 ft.

The New Zealand variety is also found in the Pacific islands, Malaya, and India. The typical state, which differs in the fronds being usually simple, occurs in Australia, Tasmania, and the Philippines. As in most of the species of the genus, the fronds are sometimes partly fertile and partly sterile.

North and South Islands, Chatham Islands, Stewart Island, Auckland and Campbell Islands: Abundant in open forests throughout. Sea-level to 3000 ft.

Easily distinguished by the tall erect habit, long and narrow horizontally spreading pinnæ, and dirty-white or reddish under-surface. The fronds are frequently forked at the top, and a beautiful sport is in cultivation in which the pinnæ are greatly expanded in the upper two-thirds of their length, and deeply pinnatifid. Also a native of Norfolk Island, Australia, and Tasmania.

North and South Islands, Stewart Island: In dry open woods from Auckland and Coromandel southwards, but often rare and local, especially to the north of the East Cape, more frequent in the subalpine forests of Nelson and Canterbury. Sea-level to 3500 ft.

A well-marked species, at once recognised by the narrow-deltoid frond, with the lowest pair of pinnse deflexed. It extends northwards through Australia and the Pacific islands to Malaya.

Kermadec Islands: Sunday Island, abundant, McGillivray, T. F. C. North Island: Three Kings Islands, T. F. C. Little Barrier Island, Reischek! T. F. C.

Also in Norfolk Island. It can only be distinguished from L. lanceolata by the greater size, the long acuminate sterile pinnæ, and the much longer fertile pinnæ, and might well be regarded as a variety only. On both the Three Kings Islands and the Little Barrier it appears to gradually merge into the ordinary state of L. lanceolata.

North and South Islands, Chatham Islands, Stewart Island: From the North Cape southwards, abundant by the margins of streams, &c. Sea-level to 2500 ft.

Also in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and the Pacific islands. A variable plant. Large specimens pass into L. Norfolkiana, and smaller ones are sometimes difficult to separate from L. membranacea.

South Island: Banks Peninsula, Armstrong. Eastern and southern coasts of Otago, not uncommon, Petrie! Thomson, Kirk! West Coast sounds, J. D. Enys! Stewart Island and The Snares: Kirk! Chatham Islands: Abundant, Chudleigh! Buchanan! Miss Seddon! Auckland and Campbell Islands, Antipodes Island: Kirk!

A purely littoral plant, never found far from the influence of sea-spray. Easily recognised by the fleshy or coriaceous habit, the usually obtuse and entire sterile pinnæ, and by the close-set broad and rigid fertile pinnæ.

North Island: Auckland—North Cape, Buchanan; near Ahipara, T. F. C.; Bay of Islands, A. Cunningham; Little Barrier Island, Kirk! T. F. C.; Manukau Heads, Sinclair, Colonel Haultain! East Cape, Colenso! Taranaki—White Cliffs to Cape Egmont, Buchanan, T. F. C. Wellington—Wellington Heads, Field; Cape Terawiti, Kirk! South Island: Marl-borough—Queen Charlotte Sound, Banks and Solander. Nelson—Cape Fare-well, Kirk! West Wanganui, Kingsley. Canterbury—Banks Peninsula, page 980Armstrong. Otago—Not uncommon on both the East and West Coasts, Buchanan, Petrie! Thomson, Hamilton! Stewart Island: Paterson's Inlet, Kirk.

A well-marked plant, easily recognised by the coriaceous habit and short and broad rounded Pinnæ attached by a broad base. Like L. dura, it is a purely littoral plant, never found beyond the influence of the sea-spray.

North and South Islands, Chatham Islands, Stewart Island, Antipcdes Island, Macquarie Island; From the Upper Thames Valley and Rotorua southwards, abundant to the south of the East Cape. Sea-level to 4000 ft.

Also abundant in temperate South America, Australia, and Tasmania. Raoul's L. pumila differs from the type in the more membranous fronds and distinctly crenate pinnæ, but is without doubt a trivial state produced by growing in an unusually sheltered and shaded locality. Specimens exactly resembling Raoul's plate can be found without any difficulty in both islands, and can generally be traced on the spot into ordinary L. alpina. I look upon it as a form too inconstant to keep up even as a variety. L. parvifolia, Col., of which I possess a type specimen forwarded by Mr. Colenso himself, is clearly the same, a view which is also taken by Mr. Baker (Ann. of Bot. v. (1891) 220).

Var. a, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. ii. 27.—Usually tall and robust. Sterile pinnsæ truncate or broadly cuneate at the base.

Var. b, Hook. f. l.c.—Usually tall and robust. Sterile pinnsæ cordate or auriculate at the base.

Var. c, Hook. f. l.c.—Usually tall and robust. Sterile pinnæ narrowed at the base.

Var. d, minor, Hook. f. l.c.—Smaller, 1–3 ft. high, dark olive-green; fertile fronds usually exceeding the sterile. Sterile pinnæ few, 4–8 pairs, short, broad, linear-oblong, the lowermost hardly shorter than the one above it, upper often adnate.—Stegania minor, E. Br. Prodr. 153.

Kermadec Islands, North and South Islands, Chatham Islands, Stewart Island, Auckland and Campbell Islands, Antipodes 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 Chili 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 6 in. high, with 3–4 pairs of pinnæ, can belong to the same species as the huge specimens growing on moist cliffs in shaded ravines, in which the fronds are sometimes 8–10 ft. long, with more than 40 pairs of pinnæ. But every gradation of size exists, page 982and one form can be traced directly into the other. I have kept up the four varieties established by Sir J. D. Hooker in the Flora, although the first three do not seem to be separated by any well-defined characters. Var. minor is more distinct; and in some respects approaches L. vulcanica. It has a different habit and mode of growth, and may prove to be a separate species.

In nearly all the species of Lomaria the fertile fronds are sometimes irregularly mixed with sterile pinnæ, but in none is this so commonly seen as in L. capensis. Sometimes one side of the frond may be fertile and the opposite side sterile, or the sterile and fertile pinnæ may be irregularly mixed. Or sometimes the upper half of the frond may be fertile and the lower sterile, or vice versâ. It is also quite common for the pinnæ themselves to be partly fertile and partly sterile. The frond is also occasionally once or twice dichotomously forked, constituting Mr. Potts's L. duplicata, and sometimes the tips of the fronds are regularly crested.

North and South Islands: In forests from the North Cape southwards to Nelson and Marlborough, abundant. Sea-level to 2000 ft.

Also recorded from the Fiji Islands. A most distinct species, remarkable for its very long climbing rhizome and dimorphic sterile fronds.

North Island: Dark gloomy forests from Whangarei southwards, not common. South Island: Nelson—Collingwood, D. Grant; Takaka and West Wanganui, Kingsley. Westland — Abundant at low elevations, Enys! A. Hamilton! J. W. Brame! &c. Otago—Milford Sound, Bligh's Sound, Lyall, Hector and Buchanan. Sea-level to 3000 ft.

Easily recognised by the enlarged terminal portion of the frond, which is often only shallowly lobed, while the lower pinnæ are usually distinct from one another. The surface of the frond is often overgrown with mosses or hepaticæ, in the same manner as in Trichomanes elongatum.

North and South Islands, Chatham Islands, Stewart Island: From Hokianga and Whangaroa southwards, not uncommon in damp hilly forests. Sea-level to 2500 ft.

Also in Victoria and Tasmania. A crested form is occasionally seen, and has been described by Mr. Colenso as var. ramosa (Trans. N.Z. Inst. xx. 225).

North Island: Shaded places by the banks of streams, not uncommon throughout. South Island: In various localities along the east coast from Nelson to Otago, but apparently rare and local. Sea-level to 2000 ft.

Large forms of this, with longer and narrower pinnæ rather more closely placed, are difficult to distinguish from L. lanceolata, if, indeed, the two species do not pass directly into one another. In its usual state, however, it is a much smaller plant, with shorter and broader obtuse pinnæ, distinctly separated from one another, and not dilated at the base or decurrent as in lanceolata. I have seen no specimens from Canterbury or Otago.

North Island: Abundant in dry woods from the North Cape southwards to the Upper Waikato and Taranaki. South Island: Nelson—Massacre Bay, Lyall; West Wanganui, Kingsley; extending along the West Coast as far south as Charlestown, Kirk. Sea-level to 2000 ft.

A very handsome and distinct species, confined to New Zealand, unless a plant lately discovered in the Philippine Islands should prove to be the same.