Flora of New Zealand Series

A. colensoi Hook. f. in Lond. J. Bot. 3, 1844, 26.

A. adiantoides var. colensoi Hook. f. Ic. Pl. t. 984.

A. richardi var. colensoi Hook. Sp. Fil. 3, 1860, 197.

Type locality: "shores of Waikare Lake". Type: W, "Dec. 1841, W.C."

Rhachis very slender to filiform; lamina membr., delicate; pinnae again pinnate to pinnatisect; segs narrow-linear, obtuse, c. 2-5 mm. long; sori 2-4 mm. long, submarginal.

DIST.: That of the sp.

Intermediate forms between the finely dissected laminae of colensoi and the broad pinnules of hookerianum occur; sts both forms are found on the same plant. A. ornatum Col. in T.N.Z.I. 22, 1890, 452, was described from plants collected "on dry hilly ground at Kuripapango, County of Hawke's Bay; 1889: Mr. Pinckney." "Fronds 6-8 in. long, oblong-lanceolate (sts broadly ovate) sub-tripinnate . . . pinnae attenuate, distant . . . with narrow thickened white margins . . . the upper half sharply toothed, sub-laciniate . . . veins few, narrow, sub-flabelliform, simple rarely once forked, thickened (lanceolate shape) at apices . . . involucre very membranous." I have not seen specimens, but plants with thickened white margins and veinlets thickened at apices occur in the A. hookerianum complex. Cheeseman (loc. cit. p. 50) regards A. ornatum as "simply a state with the pinnules rather narrower than usual, and on longer stalks".