Flora of New Zealand Series

A. flaccidum var. aucklandicum Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. 1, 1844, 109.

A. scleroprium Homb. et Jacq. Voy. Pôle Sud 1853, t. l. D.

Lamina thick, fleshy, narrow-lanceolate, acuminate. Pinnae 16-30, 7-12 × 1-2 cm., lanceolate-acuminate, often widened near obliquely cuneate base; coarsely, deeply toothed to pinnatifid; segs linear, often again toothed. Sori nearer margin, not over 1 cm. long.

DIST.: St., A. Margins of coastal forest. Status uncertain; the field evidence suggests hybridism between A. lucidum and A. flaccidum.

 Var. lyallii Hook. f. Fl. N.Z. 2, 1855, 33, t. 77. A. lyallii Moore Ind. Fil. 1859, 143. Hooker's description is: "pinnis duplicato-serratis, inferioribus basi pinnatis, pinnulis oblique ovato- v. lineari-oblongis obtusis. Middle Island, Otago, Lyall." Type: Lyall, K. The lower pinnae with basal stalked pinnules, the midpinnae ± crenately lobed. The status of the variously lobed forms placed under this name is uncertain: probably some of the forms are hybrids with A. bulbiferum.

Colenso's A. oblongifolium (Tasm. J. nat. Sci. 2, 1846, 171) was based on specimens from "ravines and dells among scoriae, on the dry volcanic range of hills near Manukau Bay; 1842." The type in W from "sides of pits, dry hills near Otahuhu, Manukau Bay, W.C." consists of two laminae, with upper portion of the stipes. Lamina 16-19 × 11-13 cm., with 4-5 subopp. pairs of pinnae, and terminal larger pinna. Lateral pinnae 4-7 × c. 1 c.m., membr., oblongs, obtuse, shallowly crenulate: terminal pinnae 10-13 cm. long, lanceolate-acuminate. Its status deserves further study. It is probably the same as A. lucidum var. paucifolium Hook., described in Hooker's Handbk N.Z. Fl. 1864, p. 371 as "Dwarf; pinnules 3-7, terminal much elongate." This has been dismissed by later workers as "merely a dwarf form".

A fairly common form has pinnae (10)-15-17 × 1-2 cm., narrow lanceolate-oblong, acuminate. Sts fronds of this form occur on plants with the usual broader pinnae.