Flora of New Zealand Series

brittle bladder fern

Rhizomes short, horizontal, scaly. Stipes 5-15 cm long, dark brown and scaly at base, straw-coloured and ± glabrous above. Laminae narrowly ovate, ovate or narrowly triangular, 10-30 × 6-14 cm, 2-3-pinnate at base, glabrous. Primary pinnae in 15-25 pairs, ovate to ± triangular, tapering at apices, the longest 3-8 × 1.5-4 cm. Secondary pinnae in 5-12 pairs, ovate to ± oblong, acute, to 2 × 1 cm, those on upper primary pinnae bluntly toothed, those on basal primary pinnae deeply incised or divided into tertiary pinnae. Sori rounded, protected by ovate indusia arching over sporangia.

N.: S. Auckland (Waikato, Hamilton, Mt Rangitoto, Kaimai Ranges), Gisborne, Wellington (Mt Ruapehu, Wellington City); S.: Canterbury (Rangiora, Christchurch, Kaituna Valley), Otago (Dunedin).

N. temperate, C. and S. America 1899

Sporadic along streams and ditches, in damp grassland and on banks of tracks and roads.

C. fragilis is a polymorphic aggregate treated here in a broad sense, but often split into numerous geographically confined taxa. It is readily distinguished from the native sp., C. tasmanica, by its larger, more highly divided fronds, its longer pinnae and by the acute apices of the ultimate segments (Fig. 3).

C. laciniatus was described by Colenso, W., Trans. Proc. N.Z. Inst. 31 : 265 (1899); the only known specimen (AK 135924, Canterbury) is C. fragilis