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.
3. L. vulcanica, Blume, En. Fil. Jav. ii. 202.—Rhizome short, stout, woody, erect or inclined, densely clothed with the remains of the old stipites. Stipes 4–9 in. long, lender, pale yellow-brown, clothed towards the base with dark-brown shining subulate scales, smooth and polished above. Sterile fronds 4–14 in. long without the stipes, 2–5 in. broad at the base, lanceolate-deltoid, not narrowed below, acuminate, coriaceous, dull-green, glabrous or the surfaces and margins sprinkled with soft white hairs, pinnate at the base, pinnatifid above. Pinnæ 1–3 in. long, ½–⅓ in. broad, spreading, lanceolate or ensiform, broadest at the base, acute or obtuse at the tip, falcate, lowest pair deflexed; margins thickened, entire or minutely crenate-undulate. Veins free, forked. Fertile fronds usually exceeding the sterile and with a longer stipes, pinnate in the lower half; pinnæ 1–2 in. long, linear, distant, with a dilated adnate base. Sori continuous; indusium with lacerate margins.—Hook. Ic. Plant. t. 969; Sp. Fil. iii. 12; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. ii. 29; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 367; Hook. and Bak. Syn. Fil. 176; Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 735; Thoms. N.Z. Ferns, 65; Field, N.Z. Ferns, 99, t. 27, f. 5, 5a. L. deitoides, Col. in Tasmanian Journ. Nat. Sci. (1845) 17. L. deflexa, Col. I.c. 18. L. paucijuga, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xx. (1888) 222. Blechnum vulcanicum, Christ.
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 pinnæ deflexed. It extends northwards through Australia and the Pacific islands to Malaya.
4. L. Norfolkiana, Heward in Lond. Journ. Bot. (1842) 122.—Rhizome short, stout, erect or inclined, clothed with the bases of the old stipites mixed with dark-brown chaffy scales. Stipes short, stout, 2–4 in. long, scaly at the base. Sterile fronds numerous, forming a crown at the top of the rhizome, erect or spreading, 1–3 ft. high, 3–6 in. broad, lanceolate or narrow elliptic-lanceolate, gradually tapering from the middle to both ends, acuminate, dark-green, firm but scarcely coriaceous, quite glabrous, deeply pinnatifid or pinnate at the base. Pinnæ numerous, close-set, horizontally spreading, 1½–3 in. long, ⅓–⅔ in. broad, lanceolate, tapering from a broad adnate base to an acuminate point, subfalcate, the lower ones
