6. A. fulvum, Raoul, Choix de Plantes, 9.—Rhizome long, creeping, clothed with brownish subulate scales. Stipes 4–12 in. long, erect, dark reddish-brown or almost black, rough with minute projections throughout, more or less scaly towards the base. Fronds 6–15 in. long, 3–9 in. broad, ovate-deltoid in outline, 2–3-pinnate or rarely in large specimens 4-pinnate at the base, olive-green or pale-green, not glaucous beneath; rhachis and costæ more or less densely clothed above with strigose fulvous hairs. Pinnæ 2–4 pairs with a long terminal one, in small specimens not branched, in larger ones the lowest pair and sometimes all again divided, or rarely the lowest pair twice branched. Pinnules ½–¾ in. long, about ¼ in. deep, petiolate, dimidiate, obliquely oblong, often slightly falcate; lower margin curved or nearly straight, entire; upper margin almost parallel, deeply crenate; lower surface often minutely setulose with stiff fulvous hairs; texture firm but not coriaceous. Sori usually numerous in shallow notches at the tips of the lobes of the upper and outer margins, not in the sinuses between the lobes. Indusium orbicular-cordate, often pale when young.—Hook. Sp. Fil. ii. 52, t. 85a; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. ii. 22; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 361; Hook. and Bak. Syn. Fil. 120; Thoms. N.Z. Ferns, 54; Field, N.Z. Ferns, 81, t. 6, f. 4. A. viridescens. Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxvii. (1895) 400.
North and South Islands: Lowland districts as far south as Banks Peninsula, not uncommon.
Very close indeed to A. affine, with which it certainly seems to me to be connected by intermediate forms. It is more copiously branched, the rhachis and costæ are clothed with strigose fulvous hairs, the stipes is minutely muricate, and the pinnules are narrower and subfalcate, and often setulose beneath. It is also found in Norfolk Island, New South Wales, and Fiji.
12. HYPOLEPIS, Bernh.
Rhizome usually wide-creeping. Fronds large, 2–3-pinnate or decompound, often glandular or tomentose; texture membranous or herbaceous. Veins forked, free, never anastomosing. Sori small, globose, distinct, placed in the sinuses of the ultimate divisions of the frond. Indusium orbicular or reniform, membranous, composed of the modified margin of the frond, reflexed over the sorus and more or less covering it. Sporangia stalked, bursting transversely, with an incomplete vertical ring.
Species 12, confined to the tropics and the south temperate zone. Of the three species found in New Zealand, two are endemic, the remaining one extends to Australia, Polynesia, and the Malay Archipelago. The genus only differs from Polypodium (as defined in the "Synopsis Filicum") by the sori being partly covered by an incurved lobule of the frond.
| Fronds (with the stipes) 2–5 ft., deltoid, tomentose, 4-pinnate. Pinnules crenate-toothed | 1. H. tenuifolia. |
