Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/1037

Aspidium.] orbicular, attached by a central stalk, flat or convex, membranous, concealing the sorus when young. Sporangia stalked, bursting transversely, girt by an incomplete vertical ring.

1. A. aculeatum, ''Swartz in Schrad. Journ.'' ii. (1800) 37; var. vestitum, ''Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 375.—Rhizome short, stout, erect or ascending, sometimes produced into an erect caudex 1–4 ft. high. Stipes 6–18 in. long, stout, erect, densely clothed with spreading scales; many of the scales large, over 1 in. long, ovate-lanceolate or subulate-lanceolate, long-acuminate, lacerate, straight or curved, glossy, black or dark-brown with a pale margin; others bristle-like or woolly, pale-ferruginous or tawny. Fronds numerous, forming a spreading crown at the top of the caudex, 1–3 ft. long without the stipes, 4–9 in. broad, oblong-lanceolate or linear-oblong, acute or acuminate, narrowed towards the base, rather coriaceous, dark-green, glabrous above when mature, under-surface more or less fibrillose, bipinnate; rhachis usually densely scaly like the stipes, but sometimes the broader scales are wanting. Primary pinnæ numerous, close-set, horizontally spreading, 2–5 in. long, ½–1 in. broad, linear-lanceolate or lanceolate, acuminate. Pinnules numerous, close, shortly stipitate, ovate-rhomboidal, unequal-sided, more or less auricled on the upper side near the base, toothed or lobed or pinnatifid, the lobes acute or pungent. Sori 6–8 to a