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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
23. NothochlÆna, R. Br
23. NothochlÆna, R. Br.
Rhizome short and tufted or long and creeping. Fronds usually small, erect, pinnate or 2–3-pinnate; under-surface more or less densely scaly or woolly or coated with white powder; texture coriaceous. Veins free, forked, not anastomosing. Sori marginal, oblong or rounded, terminating the veins, at first distinct, but soon page 1015confluent into a continuous or interrupted marginal line, often partly concealed by the slightly inflexed margin of the frond, but with no true indusium. Sporangia stalked, bursting transversely, girt by an incomplete vertical ring.
A genus of between 30 and 40 species, widely dispersed through the tropical and warm temperate regions of both hemispheres. It hardly differs from Cheilanthes, except in the recurved margin of the frond not being distinctly modified into an indusium. The single New Zealand species is also found in Australia, Norfolk Island, and New Caledonia.
| 1. | N. distans, R. Br. Prodr. 146.—Rhizome short, stout, sub-erect or prostrate, clothed with the bases of the old stipites and with ferruginous linear scales. Stipes 1–4 in. long, stiff, wiry, erect, dark chestnut-brown, more or less clothed with subulate-lanceolate scales. Fronds numerous, tufted at the top of the rhizome, 3–6 in. long without the stipes, ½–1 in. broad, linear-oblong, erect, rigid, subcoriaceous, sparingly villous or hairy above, beneath densely covered with long linear-subulate ferruginous scales, 2-pinnate. Primary Pinnæ stipitate, opposite or nearly so, the lower remote, ⅓–⅔ in. long, ovate-deltoid, pinnate at the base, pinnatifid above. Pinnules few, seldom more than 2–3 pairs, ovate-oblong, obtuse, the lowest pinnatifid at the base; margins recurved. Sori forming a continuous line round the margin.—Hook. Ic. Plant, t. 980; Sp. Fil. v. 114; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. ii. 46; Handb, N.Z. Fl. 383; Hook. and Bak. Syn. Fil. 372; Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 774; Thoms. N.Z. Ferns, 91; Field, N.Z. Ferns, 143, t. 16, f. 3.
North Island: Rocky places from the Bay of Islands to Cook Strait, local. South Island: Near Nelson, T. F. C. Banks Peninsula and other localities in Canterbury, Armstrong, T. H. Potts. Sea-level to 2500 ft. Often confused with Cheilanthes Sieberi, of which it has the habit and general appearance; but a smaller plant, with the frond conspicuously shaggy and scaly beneath. |