Flora of New Zealand Series

Polypodium medullare Forst. f. Pl. Esc. 1786, 74.

Sphaeropteris medullaris Bernh. in Schrad. J. Bot. 2, 1801, 122.

Caudex up to 15 m. or more tall, and 30 cm. diam., except towards base much thickened by dense mass of rootlets, black, marked by hexagonal scars of fallen stipites. Stipes stout, black, to 1 m. long, up to ± 8 cm. diam. near base; tuberculate; copiously clad towards base by black linear paleae c. 3 mm. long. Rhachis (and secondary rhachides and costae) stout, pale brown, muricate, clad in brownish hairs, later glabrate. Lamina up to c. 6 × 2 m., 2-3-pinnate, coriac., dark green above, pale green below. Primary pinnae up to 1 m. long, oblong-lanceolate, attenuate; secondary up to 15 cm. long, narrow-oblong attenuate. Pinnules c. 1 cm. long, lower distinct, upper confluent, narrow-oblong obtuse to acute, subfalcate, crenate-serrate to crenulately lobed; margins recurved, veins several times forked. Sori up to c. 16 per pinnule, 1 mm. or more diam., us. cop. Indusium thin, at first covering sorus, splitting irregularly.

DIST.: Three Kings, N., S., St., Ch. Lowland forest throughout, uncommon east of divide in S. Mamaku. Also Tasmania, Victoria, Pacific Is.

Cheeseman (Man. N.Z. Fl. 1925, 24) treats the name C. polyneuron Col. in T.N.Z.I. 11, 1879, 429 as a synonym. Domin in Bibl. Bot. 85, 1915, 27 accepted Colenso's plant as a var. of C. medullaris. Colenso based his sp. on a plant "on my ground, Scinde Island, Napier" that he removed to his garden. He also had "specimens of similar plants from the eastern slopes of the Ruahine Mountain forests, as well as from smaller woods near the sea on the east coast." He distinguishes it from C. medullaris by "its general hairiness and its woolliness, in its larger size of frond (breadth, etc.) and richer appearance, in its pleasing grass-green colour, its truly pinnate segments, its peculiar hairy scales and its numerous pinnate veins,-these last two marks being its specific characteristics, and its very numerous veins or venules in a lobe, the origin of its trivial name." The type in W consists of three portions of a rhachis bearing in all 20 secondary pinnae. The rhachis is stout, pale brown, tuberculate. The points stressed by Colenso are not revealed in the specimens except the venation, which can be matched in undoubted C. medullaris. The status must remain uncertain till fresh material from the Ruahine Range is examined.