Art. XXVII.—On the Occurrence of the Fern Botrychium lunaria, Sw., (Moonwort) in New Zealand.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 16, 1883, Page 363

Art. XXVII.—On the Occurrence of the Fern Botrychium lunaria, Sw., (Moonwort) in New Zealand. By J. D. Enys [Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 3rd May, 1883.] On 15th November, 1882, I was engaged laying out the line of a wire fence across a piece of ground of a peaty nature resting on a stiff clay about 2,600 feet above the sea, when I detected the first specimen of this well-known fern. After a close search I failed in finding a second, indeed the first specimen had only just shown up. About a week later I found a number more showing up in two spots in the same neighbourhood; a month or so later not one remained, this may partly be owing to the dry season. I have copied out the description from Hooker and Baker's “Synopsis Filicum” (1868), as New Zealand fern collectors may not have access to a description of this fern. “B. lunaria, Sw., st. stout, 1–4 inches; sterile segm. sessile or nearly so, 1–3 inches long,½–1 inch broad, not much broader at the base than the middle, cut down to a flattened rhachis into several distinct, close, entire, or

notched cuneate-flabellate pinnæ on both sides; fertile peduncle equalling or exceeding the sterile segm. when fully developed; panicle close, 1–2 inches long, lanceolate-deltoid, bipinnate, Hk.Br.F. t. 48. “Hab. Arctic Europe and Iceland to Spain, Italy, Kamscatka, and the Himalayas, South Australia, Tasmania, North-West America, Greenland.”