Flora of New Zealand Series

G. circinata auth. non Swartz Syn. Fil. 1806, 165.

G. semi-vestita Labill. Sert. Nov. Cal. 1824, 8, t. 11.

Waewaekaka.

Rhizome slender, wiry, clad in reddish-brown fimbriate scales, mingled with slender paler hairs, becoming glab. Stipes similarly clad, becoming glab., c. 2 mm. diam., up to 30 cm. long. Fronds us. several times branched, branches ± clad in stellate hairs and fimbriate scales. Pinnae 1-4 cm. long; pinnules 30-50, close-set, up to 3 mm. long, oblong-triangular, blunt, flat to slightly concave, often glaucous below. Sporangia 2-4 per sorus, rarely fewer by abortion, shining, bright to brownish-yellow.

DIST.: N., S., St. Lowland heaths and boggy ground from near North Cape southwards, uncommon in S.

Also in Australia, New Caledonia, Malaya.

Cheeseman (Man. N.Z. Fl. 1925, 85) places two of Colenso's spp. as synonymous with G. microphylla. The status of both needs further study.

(a) G. punctulata Col. in T.N.Z.I. 16, 1884, 344, from "Near Hot Springs, centre Great Barrier Islet, Thames, 1882: Mr. C. P. Winkelmann", is described as having the pinnules "almost sub-quadrangular, very obtuse and slightly recurved at tips, glaucous almost blue beneath, and minutely and regularly punctulate . . . capsules 1-2 together, large, white". The type specimen, at W, shows pinnules about oblong, broad-obtuse, c. 1 mm. long and 0·5 mm. wide, glaucous below or dulled to brown, apices recurved; sori numerous, sporangia 1-3 predominately 2, dull palish brown (with age ?).

(b) G. patens Col. in T.N.Z.I. 20, 1899, 212, from "near to hot springs at Wairakei, Taupo; 1887: Mr. C. J. Norton", is described as having the pinnules "semi-elliptic or subquadrilateral, with top rounded, apiculate, flat margins not recurved when fresh, membranaccous, full of minute pellucid dots when held up between the eye and light . . . sori few, scattered . . . mostly containing 2 capsules, often only 1, more rarely 3 . . . pale, shining". The type specimen, at W, has pinnules 1-2 mm. long and up to 1 mm. wide, oblong-subtriangular, minutely apiculate, more or less flat; sori few, sporangia 1-3, now dull palish brown. Cheeseman (loc. cit.) considers this to be "an excessively proliferous state with slender almost subscandent stems forming large masses in heated soils near hot springs at Taupo. The fronds are more membranous than usual, but that and its other peculiarities are easily accounted for by the exceptional nature of its habitat."