Flora of New Zealand Series

Rhizomes short, erect, sometimes forming a stout trunk. Stipes and rachises densely scaly; scales broad, with shiny dark brown centres and pale borders. Laminae narrowly elliptic or narrowly oblong, 2-pinnate, 20-100 × 6-25 cm. Primary pinnae in 25-60 pairs, ± narrowly oblong, the longest 3-15 × 1-2.5 cm. Secondary pinnae in 10-20 pairs, ± elliptic with basal acroscopic lobe, to 22 × 13 mm, shallowly incised in smaller fronds, deeply incised in larger fronds; apices sharply pointed. Sori round, protected by uniformly pale brown peltate indusia.

N.: from Coromandel Ranges southwards, largely confined to montane areas; S.; St.; Ant., A., C.: throughout, becoming increasingly abundant southwards.

Endemic.

Forest, bush margins, scrubland and tussock grassland.

P. vestitum reaches its greatest abundance in colder, wetter parts of the South Id, and is an important component of the vegetation of the Subantarctic Is. The sp. has also been recorded from Ch., but plants there have shorter, wider fronds (to 40 × 25 cm) with uniformly pale brown rachis scales that are fringed at their bases; they almost certainly belong to a different, probably undescribed sp. Some specimens from the Subantarctic Is, especially the Snares, also resemble the Ch. plants.