Nephrolepis aff.
Rhizomes small, erect, densely scaly, producing numerous far-creeping runners; runners scaly but lacking tubers. Stipes 3-15 cm long. Stipes and rachises pale brown, brittle, bearing pale brown hair-like scales. Laminae almost parallel-sided, tapering only slightly towards the apex, 25-65 × 2.5-5-(6) cm, pinnate, tending to droop. Primary pinnae in > 50 pairs, overlapping in middle of frond, more widely spaced at base, the longest 1-3 × 0.5-1 cm, ± glabrous, oblong or narrowly oblong with a basal acroscopic lobe; apices obtuse; margins ± entire or slightly crenate or serrate. Sori round, in single rows either side of midrib, protected by crescent-shaped indusia.
N.: S. Auckland (geothermal sites in the Rotorua-Taupo region); K.
Probably also indigenous elsewhere in the Pacific.
Open forest, clay banks, among boulders, occasionally epiphytic.
These native plants have previously been referred to the widespread N. cordifolia, but can be distinguished readily from the naturalised sp. (Fig. 2) and therefore require further investigation. Plants from the Kermadecs and thermal regions apparently resemble those native to Norfolk Id (Sykes 1977).
