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Genus 5. Hymenophyllum, Smith.
1. H. alpinum, sp. nov.
Plant small, terrestrial, creeping, glabrous, caudex very long, horizontal, intermixed, bare, with a few small fine red hairs scattered on rootlets. Stipe flexuous, suberect, slender, wiry, 2 in.—3 in. long, woody, terete, smooth. Frond tri-subquadripinnate, deltoid, ¾ in.—2 in. long, generally much recurved and compacted, dark-green, frequently possessing reddish spots, and bearing a rusty tinge (red-brown in age); main rhachis bare below, above with subrhachises narrowly winged, serrate; pinnæ irregularly and closely overlapping, ultimate pinnules subflabelliform; lobes narrow-linear, truncate, coarsely serrate; tips sometimes dilated and 2—3 serrulate; single-veined; veins stout, not extending to tips. Involucres very few, solitary, supra-axillary in upper pinnæ, free, substipitate, pale-green; valves rather large, cut nearly to base, oblong; tips broad; margins entire, purplish; receptacle stout; capsules large, compact.
Hab. Ruahine Mountain-range, alpine woods, east side; 1898: Mr. H. Hill. Same mountain-range, common; 1845–52: W.C.
Obs. I. This species is near H. truncatum, Col. (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxiii., p. 390), but differs from that species in several characters, particularly in its very long, wiry, flexuous, bare, and glabrous stipe, which is also remarkably tough, though extremely slender; its fruiting fronds are very few.
II. This fern is the mountain species referred to above; l.c., p. 391.
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2. H. oligocarpum, sp. nov.
Rhizome long, wiry, harsh, creeping, blackish, bare, with a few rootlets. Stipe 2 ¾ in.–3in. long, filiform, wiry, naked, dark-brown. Frond erect, ¾ in.—1 in. apart, glabrous, sub-ovate-acuminate, 2 ½ in.−3 in. long, 2 in.−4 in. wide, rather irregular in outline, bipinnate, membranous, decurved, bright emerald-green; pinnæ free; midrib, rhachis, and subrhachises prominent, slender, blackish throughout, winged, denticulate-serrate, the wings of subrhachises broader, secondary pinnæ rather distant; lobes linear, sharply serrate, teeth distant, tips obtuse - truncate, sometimes denticulate. Involucres large, few, solitary, supra-axillary in upper secondary pinnæ, and extending to tip of frond, free, pedicelled, erect and drooping; pedicel often winged on one side, with a short lobe or tooth on the other; valves large, broadly obovate, entire, smooth, shining, cut half - way down, immature closed and much curved together, mature open, gaping. Receptacle stout, largely exserted; capsules few, red.
Hab. Forests, Waikaremoana, Hawke's Bay; 1898: Mr. H. Hill.
Obs. A species allied to H. multifidum, but differing in several characters, particularly its irregular and open pinnæ and pinnules, its few solitary pedicelled sori, and largely decurved involucre; the cells, too, of its frond are different, as shown in the plate of the type specimen of H. multifidum, Sw. (Hk. and Grev., Ic. Fil., t. 167), and Baker describes its sori: “1 to 12 to a pinna, terminal on the lateral segments of the upper pinnæ on both sides” (Sy. Fil., p. 69).