Indusium membranous, splitting irregularly, persistent at the base of the sorus as a shallow cup with lacerate margins.—Hook. and Bak. Syn. Fil. 26.
Kermadec Islands: Sunday Island, abundant from sea-level to the tops of the highest hills, alt. 1700 ft.
A noble species, allied to C. medullaris, but sufficiently distinct in the more membranous fronds, in the stipes and rhachis not being conspicuously muricate and densely clothed on both sides with yellowish-brown deciduous wool, and in the fertile segments being much less coarsely serrate.
4. C. Cunninghamii, Hook. f. in Hook. Ic. Plant. t. 985.—Trunk 8–20 ft. high, rarely more, often coated at the base with densely compacted aerial rootlets, upper part covered with the pendent withered fronds. Fronds numerous, 20–30, 6–10 ft. long, 2–4 ft. broad, 2–3-pinnate, subcoriaceous or almost membranous, flaccid, dark-green above, paler beneath. Stipes rather slender, dark-coloured at the very base, and furnished with numerous linear scales, elsewhere pale, and together with the rhachis slightly tubercled, more or less covered, especially on the upper surface, with pale yellowish-brown woolly or strigose tomentum. Primary pinnæ 1–2 ft. long, 4–6 in. broad, oblong-lanceolate, acuminate; secondary 2–4 in. long, about ¾ in. broad, linear-oblong, acuminate, deeply pinnatifid above, pinnate below. Segments or pinnules ⅓–½ in. long, linear, obtuse, regularly lobulate or pinnatifid; lobules entire; veins forked. Sori copious, one to each lobe of the pinnule, rather nearer the costa than the margin. Indusium brown, membranous, at first covering the sorus, splitting up very irregularly, sometimes leaving an unequal-sided cup with lacerate edges, at other times a single lobe on one side as in Hemitelia.—Fl. Nov. Zel. ii 7; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 350; Hook. and Bak. Syn. Fil. 25; Thoms. N.Z. Ferns, 29; Field, N.Z. Ferns, 44, t. 9, f. 1, 2.
North Island: Auckland—Bay of Islands, Cunningham, Miss Clarke! Whangarei, T.F.C.; Great Barrier Island, Kirk; Waitakerei and Hunua, T.F.C. Wellington—Hutt Valley, Ralph, Buchanan. South Island: Nelson—Bateman's Gully, D. Grant! Chatham Islands: H. H. Travers! Miss Seddon! Sea-level to 1500 ft.
Best distinguished from C. medullaris, to which it is closely allied, by the smaller size, more membranous fronds, paler and much less muricate stipes and rhachis, which are more or less clothed with yellowish strigose hairs, and by the smaller segments and sori.
5. HEMITELIA, R. Br.
Tree-ferns, not distinguishable in habit from Cyathea. Fronds large, usually 2–3-pinnate, rarely pinnate. Stipes smooth or asperous or muricate. Veins pinnately forked; veinlets free, or the lower ones more or less anastomosing just above the costa. Sori dorsal, globose, situated upon a vein or veinlet; receptacle elevated, globose or elongated. Indusium never covering the sorus,
