Dicksonia lanata Colenso ex Hook.
D. laevis Heward in Hook. f. Sp. Fil. 1, 1846, 69.
Type locality: east side of Waikaremoana. Type: W, Colenso, December, 1841. Endemic.
Caudex either (a) prostrate, slender, up to 5 cm. or more diam., branching to form clumps, or (b) erect, stout, up to 2 m. tall. Stipes 20-60 cm. long, densely clad in lower part in shining red-brown hairs up to 2 cm. long, and in shorter brown hairs in furrow. Rhachis similarly clad, glabrate in age. Lamina 30-50 cm. long, ovate to deltoid, acuminate, coriac., yellowish green above, paler below, 2-3-pinnate. Primary pinnae diminishing upwards and downwards from 15-25 cm. long, lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, acute. Secondary pinnae up to 5 cm. or more long, us. less. Pinnules close-set, up to 5 mm. long; barren ovate-oblong, acute to obtuse, slightly concave, crenately toothed; fertile with rounded strongly concavo-convex lobes, each bearing a sorus Indusium subcoriac.
DIST.: N., S. Lowland to montane forests, occ., from lat. 35º to lat. 44º.
The status of the forms has not been worked out. Cheeseman (Man. N.Z. Fl. 1925, 22) remarks: "At Whangarei, Bay of Islands, and other northern localities, this usually produces a short stout trunk, but to the south of Auckland it is invariably stemless. Possibly there may be two distinct varieties with a different geographical range, but so far I have failed to find distinctive characters to separate them." Colenso's type specimen is a complete frond; he describes the plant as "suberect" and of his var. hispida states: "This variety attains to the height of 5-6 feet, including stipe."
