Flora of New Zealand Series

Trichomanes malingii Hook. Garden Ferns 1862, t. 64.

Apteropteris malingii (Hook.) Cop. loc. cit. 64, 1937, 176.

Type locality: "On the ranges of Golden Bar [Bay]". Type: K, Maling. Also in Tasmania.

Rhizome very slender, ± clad in reddish brown hairs; stipites us. rather distant. Stipes 3-10 cm. long, very slender, not winged, ± densely hairy when young. Rhachis not winged, slender, densely clad in stellate hairs. Lamina 5-10 cm. long, narrow-oblong, 2-3-pinnatifid, densely clad in greyish to reddish brown stellate hairs mixed with minute clavate papillae; final segs rigid, subterete, linear. Sori c. 1 mm. long, terminating segs. Indusium orbicular, 2-valved to halfway or more; valves denticulate at apex, obscured by investiture of hairs. Receptacle not exserted.

DIST.: N., S. Montane to subalpine forests from lat. 37º 30' southwards, reaching lowland forest in southern part of range. Epiphytic on decaying trunks of trees, mainly on Libocedrus bidwillii, rarely on Dacrydium and Nothofagus, rarely on living trees. "It has been reported as growing terrestrially in great luxuriance in thick moss in sheltered places in the Nelson district" (Dobbie and Crookes New Zealand Ferns 1951, 93).