Telaranea tetrapila (Hook.f. & Taylor) J.J.Engel & G.L.Merr.
Lepidozia cancellata Colenso, Trans. & Proc. New Zealand Inst. 18: 244. 1886.
Type: New Zealand, Waipawa Co., near Norsewood, edge of Bartramia Creek, 1885, Colenso a. 1418 (BM!, WELT!).
Psiloclada digitata Colenso, Trans. & Proc. New Zealand Inst. 18: 243. 1886.
Type: New Zealand, Waipawa Co., near Norsewood, 1885, Colenso a. 1378 (BM!, WELT – absens).
[Fig. 50: 6, oil-bodies, p. 268; Fig. 62: 9–12]
Plants resembling Telaranea gibbsiana, often pale amber in color; plants medium, to 1.1 cm wide, including branches; branching somewhat irregularly to regularly 1-pinnate; leaf lobes longer than the disc, subcaudate, rather abruptly tapering to a uniseriate row of cells, ± straight, the cells of the uniseriate row ± elongate (to 2.5:1), not barrel-shaped; leaf disc at most moderately asymmetric, the disc cells mostly isodiametric; oil-bodies greyish, 5–8 per cell; underleaves subequal to the leaves in size, with long, ciliiform lobes, the terminal cells often secondarily divided.
Distribution and Ecology : Endemic to New Zealand: North Island (245–1160 m). Known from Southern North Island (Tararua Ra.), Gisborne (Urewera Natl. Park) and Auckland (Herangi Ra., Mt. Te Aroha, Great Barrier Island) EPs.
Known only from several scattered sites, “on trees and logs, forming large and thick patches” (Colenso, loc. cit., p. 245). On Mt. Te Aroha, plants occurred at 880–890 m loosely on the floor as well as over soil deep in a protected niche under the lip of the forest overhang, both populations in a stunted Nothofagus menziesii forest associated with Dracophyllum and Quintinia serrata. In the Herangi Ra. (S of Kawhia Harbor) the species occurred at ca. 720–750 m on an exposed plateau with a mosaic of penalpine bog vegetation, stunted Quintinia serrata and Dracophyllum heath (to 1 m tall), rocky outcrops and small water channels. At this site plants were found in moist niches, e.g., on the floor or beneath blades of Poa sp.
Comments : Colenso (1886a, p. 245) aptly described this as “a truly elegant plant.” It is chiefly distinguished by the rather regularly 1-pinnate shoots; the often pale amber pigmentation; the slender leaf lobes, which are subcaudate as in the var. tetrapila, but with a uniseriate row composed of elongated (to 2.5:1) cells; and the rather large underleaves, with long, ciliiform lobes, rather like those of Telaranea gibbsiana. It differs from T. paludicola in the ± isodiametric cells of the disc and lobe bases, and the abruptly tapering lobes, with a long, uniseriate row, which are ± straight, vs. lobes biseriate, often falcate and hooked at the tips in T. paludicola.
