Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/1020

980 Armstrong. Otago—Not uncommon on both the East and West Coasts, ''Buchanan, Petrie! Thomson, Hamilton! : Paterson's Inlet, Kirk.''

A well-marked plant, easily recognised by the coriaceous habit and short and broad rounded pinnæ attached by a broad base. Like L. dura, it is a purely littoral plant, never found beyond the influence of the sea-spray.

8. L. alpina, ''Spreng. Syst. Veg.'' iv. 62.—Rhizome long, slender, branched, creeping, clothed with chaffy ferruginous scales. Stipes 2—6 in. long or more, slender, red-brown, smooth and polished, sparingly scaly. Fronds tufted along the rhizome; sterile shorter than the fertile, 4–18 in. long including the stipes, ⅓–⅔ in. broad, often spreading or decumbent, linear or linear-lanceolate, narrowed to the base, dark-green, pinnatifid or pinnate towards the base, texture varying from thick and coriaceous to almost membranous. Pinnæ numerous, close-set, short, spreading, $1⁄5$–⅓ in. long, attached by a broad base, ovate-oblong or triangular-oblong to linear-oblong, obtuse, entire or obscurely crenate. Fertile fronds erect, pinnate throughout; pinnæ numerous, rather distant, shorter and narrower than the sterile, linear or linear-oblong, obtuse, spreading or deflexed or sometimes curved upwards. Sori copious, covering the whole under-surface.—''Hook. Fil. Exot. t. 32; Sp. Fil.'' iii. 16; ''Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. h. 393, t. 150; Fl. Nov. Zel.'' ii. 30; ''Handb. N.Z. Fl. 368; Hook. f. Bak. Syn. Fil. 178; Benth. Fl. Austral.'' vii. 786; ''Thoms. N.Z. Ferns, 66; Field, N.Z. Ferns,'' 105, t. 17, f. 5, 5a. L. pumila, Raoul, Choix, 9, t. 2a; ''Hook. Sp. Fil.'' iii. 17; ''Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel.'' ii. 28; ''Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 367. L. linearis. ''Col. in Tasmanian Journ. Nat. Sci.'' (1845) 16. L. parvifolia. ''Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst.'' xx. (1888) 224. Stegania alpina, ''R. Br. Prodr.'' 152. Blechnum alpinum, ''Metten. Fil. Hort. Bot. Lips.'' 64. Polypodium penna-marina, ''Poir. in Lam. Encycl.'' v. 520.

9. L. capensis, ''Willd. Sp. Plant.'' v. 291.—Rhizome short, stout, often woody, erect or inclined, sometimes prostrate, clothed at the top with large chestnut-brown scales. Stipes stout, long or short, usually densely scaly at the base. Fronds numerous, very variable in size, usually from 1–4 ft., but in dry exposed places