Flora of New Zealand Series

mother shield fern

Rhizomes short, thick, erect, sometimes forming small trunks. Stipes 10-35 cm long, densely scaly; scales broad, shiny, with dark brown centres and pale borders. Rachises densely covered in narrow uniformly pale orange-brown scales, bearing 1-2 (rarely more) bulbils near the apices. Laminae narrowly ovate or narrowly oblong, 2-pinnate at base, 20-85 × 6-30 cm. Primary pinnae in 25-35 pairs, narrowly triangular, the longest 3-15 × 1-2.5 cm, rarely bearing bulbils near apices. Secondary pinnae in 5-18 pairs, stalked, ± elliptic but with large basal acroscopic lobe; margins crenate, sharply toothed. Sori round, protected by uniformly pale brown peltate indusia.

N.: S. Auckland (Kinleith, Tirau, Waimangu), Wellington City; S.: Marlborough (Sounds district), Otago (Dunedin).

S.E. Australia 1890

Open forest and bush margins.

P. proliferum is very closely related to P. vestitum. It is distinguished by the presence of bulbils on the fronds (Fig. 5), and by the distribution of glossy scales with dark centres and pale borders which extend up the stipe and rachis in P. vestitum but which are replaced on the rachis by narrow, uniformly pale scales in P. proliferum. Mother shield fern has been recorded sporadically throughout the country since late last century but has apparently never become well established.