Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/990

950 Indusium membranous, splitting irregularly, persistent at the base of the sorus as a shallow cup with lacerate margins.—''Hook. and Bak. Syn. Fil.'' 26.

4. C. Cunninghamii, ''Hook. f. in Hook. Ic. Plant.'' t. 985.—Trunk 8–20 ft. high, rarely more, often coated at the base with densely compacted aerial rootlets, upper part covered with the pendent withered fronds. Fronds numerous, 20–30, 6–10 ft. long, 2–4 ft. broad, 2–3-pinnate, subcoriaceous or almost membranous, flaccid, dark-green above, paler beneath. Stipes rather slender, dark- coloured at the very base, and furnished with numerous linear scales, elsewhere pale, and together with the rhachis slightly tubercled, more or less covered, especially on the upper surface, with pale yellowish-brown woolly or strigose tomentum. Primary pinnæ 1–2 ft. long, 4–6 in. broad, oblong-lanceolate, acuminate; secondary 2–4 in. long, about ¾ in. broad, linear-oblong, acuminate, deeply pinnatifid above, pinnate below. Segments or pinnules ⅓–½ in. long, linear, obtuse, regularly lobulate or pinnatifid; lobules entire; veins forked. Sori copious, one to each lobe of the pinnule, rather nearer the costæ than the margin. Indusium brown, membranous, at first covering the sorus, splitting up very irregularly, sometimes leaving an unequal-sided cup with lacerate edges, at other times a single lobe on one side as in Hemitelia.—Fl. Nov. Zel. ii 7; ''Handb. N.Z. Fl. 350; Hook. and Bak. Syn. Fil. 25; Thoms. N.Z. Ferns, 29; Field, N.Z. Ferns,'' 44, t. 9, f. 1, 2.

Tree-ferns, not distinguishable in habit from Cyathea. Fronds large, usually 2–3-pinnate, rarely pinnate. Stipes smooth or asperous or muricate. Veins pinnately forked; veinlets free, or the lower ones more or less anastomosing just above the costa. Sori dorsal, globose, situated upon a vein or veinlet; receptacle elevated, globose or elongated. Indusium never covering the sorus,