Flora of New Zealand Series

Trichomanes demissum Forst. f. Prodr. 1786, 85.

Mecodium demissum (Forst. f.) Cop. loc. cit. 67, 1938, 24.

Type locality: No locality given. Type: Gottingen?

Rhizome rather slender, with scattered hairs when young; stipites rather distant. Stipes 5-15 cm. long, rather slender, glab., very narrowly winged for some distance, or wingless. Rhachis slender, narrowly winged, sts obscurely so in lower part. Lamina 5-15 cm. long, bright green, ovate-deltoid to lanceolate, acuminate; 3-4-pinnatifid; final segs linear, not crowded, obtuse to retuse; margins partly 2-celled, especially in sinuses. Sori us. ∞, free. Indusium hardly 1 mm. long, 12-valved to base; valves entire to crenulate. Indusia often paired, the pairs sometimes fused, but retaining two receptacles. Receptacles not exserted or hardly so.

DIST.: K., N., S., St., Ch., A. Terrestrial or epiphytic in lowland to lower montane forests throughout. Apparently endemic.

Deserving of further study as to status are:

1. H. erecto-alatum Col. in T.N.Z.I. 11, 1879, 431. "Frond . . . bright grass-green - colour, 3-4 inches long, 2-3 inches broad . . . main rachis, and also secondary rachises winged throughout; wings very much crisped and narrowly undulated and vertical . . . Stipes . . . 4-5 inches long, slightly winged above [not clearly seen in type specimens] . . . sori semi-exserted and coloured red." Type locality: "Among roots of trees in dry forests near Norsewood." Type: W, Colenso.

2. H. megalocarpum Col. in T.N.Z.I. 15, 1893, 308. "Stipes . . . 2-4 inches long . . . main rhachis and secondary rhachises red coloured, winged throughout; wings crisped . . . involucres . . . very large, much wider than segments, 1/12 - ⅛ inch wide at widest part . . . often geminate, sometimes two from one vein, and sometimes even three together . . . Sori in large rotund clusters and coloured red, prominent, exserted, sometimes two clusters within one individual". Type locality: "In open woods, in the Seventy-Mile Bush between Norsewood and Dannevirke". Type: W, Colenso.

The type specimens are quite striking, with their profuse development of compound indusia, but gradational forms to the more common forms with all or nearly all indusia single have been collected. H. polychilum Colenso in T.N.Z.I. 24, 1892, 395 from "Dry shaded woods south of Dannevirke" (Type: W, Colenso) differs only in bearing a rather greater proportion of single indusia.