often dwarfed to a few inches, while on the sides of deep wooded ravines they are occasionally 8–10 ft. long or even more; sterile ovate or oblong-ovate to oblong-lanceolate, erect or pendulous, very coriaceous to almost membranous, bright-green to brownish-green, pinnate throughout; rhachis stout, more or less scaly, especially when young. Pinnæ often very numerous, but in small specimens and in var. minor frequently reduced to 4–6 pairs, alternate, horizontally spreading, 3–12 in. long or more, ½–1 in. broad, acute or acuminate, oblique at the base and cuneate or truncate or rounded-cordate or even auriculate, sessile by the midrib alone or the uppermost more or less adnate; margins minutely toothed; costæ more or less scaly. Veins free, close, parallel, usually forked at the base. Fertile pinnæ very narrow-linear, distant, 3–9 in. long, ⅛–¼ in. broad, usually on separate fronds, but often mixed with sterile pinnæ or the pinnæ partly fertile and partly sterile. Indusiusm broad, membranous, lacerate.—F. Muell. Veg. Chath. Is. 72; Benth. N.Z . Austral. vii. 737. L. procera, Spreng. Syst. Veg. iv. 65; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 182; Raoul, Choix, 37; Hook. Ic. Plant. t. 427, 428; Sp. Fil. iii. 22; Garden Ferns, t. 53; Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. i. 110; Fl. Nov. Zel. ii. 27; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 366; Hook. and Bak. Syn. Fil. 179; Thoms. N.Z. Ferns, 67; Field, N.Z. Ferns, 107, t. 2, f. 1, 1a. L. latifolia. Col. in Tasmanian Journ. Nat. Sci. (1845) 15. L. duplicata, Potts in Trans. N.Z. List. ix. (1877) 491. Stegania procera, R. Br. Prodr. 153; A. Rich. Fl. 86, t. 13. Osmunda capensis, Linn. Mant. 306. O. procera, Forst. Prodr. n. 414. Blechnum capense, Schlecht. Adumb. Fil. 34, t. 18.
Var. a, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. ii. 27.—Usually tall and robust. Sterile pinnæ truncate or broadly cuneate at the base.
Var. b, Hook. f. I.c.—Usually tall and robust. Sterile pinnæ cordate or auriculate at the base.
Var. c, Hook. f. I.c.—Usually tall and robust. Sterile pinnæ narrowed at the base.
Var. d, minor, Hook. f. I.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 of ten adnate.—Stegania minor, R. 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,
