shorter and texture a little thinner; pinnæ linear-oblong, broader, 3–4 lines broad, obtuse; terminal segment somewhat shorter and broader, 4–6 lines broad. Some semi-barren fronds present a peculiar appearance; a few pinnæ having single rows of scattered sori, in very small linear and semi-lunate dots, each scarely one line long, which are again sometimes biserial and distant on the terminal segment, and on a few of the larger pinnæ. If these peculiar fronds were not found growing from the same root or caudex with the larger and fertile ones, they would be set down as forming a different species or variety. Six species of Doodia are very fully described by Sir W. J. Hooker in his Species Filicum, including those known to him from New Zealand; I possess botanical drawings with dissections of them all, with none of which as well as with their descriptions) does this plant agree. To our New Zealand “D. caudata,” of which, though possessing copious specimens from several botanists, Sir W. J. Hooker says, “All these from New Zealand border too closely upon D. media (Sp. Fil., Vol. III., p. 76); it approaches in its long terminal segment and narrow (fertile) pinnæ; but that Australian species, though a very much smaller plant, is said to be “pinnate nearly to the summit,” with the “sori in a single series,” its “indusia sub-lunate, stipes naked at base,” and “its rachis quite smooth,” etc. It also has pretty close affinity with D. media, but differs still more from this common New Zealand species. In its regular double lines of closely-compacted sori, and in their great excess, extending both upwards and downwards on the auricles and wings of its broadly-adnate pinnæ (as it were sursum currens and decurrens), which give a kind of winged appearance to the rhachis, though still truly pinnate, every pinna being separate, and also in its black paleaceous stipes and scales, it seems te have affinity with D. dives, a Ceylon species, especially with the variety β zeylanicum, Hook., of that species, of which Sir W. J. Hooker says,—“The wings of the rachis bear sori as well as the segments and pinnæ” (l.c., p. 74), but the involucres in the Ceylon plant are all lunulate and broader, and the pinnæ and venation different. (A fine free drawing, with dissections of this plant, is given in Beddome's Ferns of S. India, p. 222, all showing its very great distinctness from the Napier plant.) It seems also to be equally distinct from five newer and additional Polynesian “varieties,” briefly described by Baker in his Synopsis Filicum (appendix, p. 482), nearly all of which have their sori uni-serial. I have given, I may say, some amount of extra examination at various times extending throughout many years, to this plant, having it here growing around me—as may be inferred from my full description of it; and