FILICALES. Cyathea dealbata: Auckland, Mountain Road, Henderson Valley, 250 m; Te Kouma, Coromandel Peninsula, 130 m; Mt. Te Aroha, 500 m. Cyathea medullaris: Auckland, Campbells Bay, 130 m; Mamaku Forest, 600 m. Wellington, Totara Reserve, Pohangina Valley, 80 m. Cyathea smithii: Auckland, Lake Okataina, 500 m. Westland, Weheka, 200 m. Dicksonia squarrosa: Auckland, Earthquake Flat, Rotorua, 500 m; Mairoa, Wairakei. Wellington, Totara Reserve, Pohangina Valley, 80 m. Otago, Fern Gully, Stewart Island.

Hymenophore annual, membranous, adherent, effused forming linear areas to 8 x 1 cm, with a few outlying islands; hymenial surface white, even, not creviced; margin thinning out, arachnoid, white, adherent. Context white, to 80 µmthick, basal layer narrow, of parallel hyphae, intermediate layer of loosely intertwined hyphae branched at a wide angle, becoming erect and dense in the subhymenium; generative hyphae 2.5-3 µm diameter, walls 0.2 µm thick, naked, with clamp connections. Hymenial layer to 30 µm deep, a dense palisade of basidia, paraphyses, and paraphysate hyphae. Basidia subclavate, 10-16 x 5-6 µm, bearing 2-4 spores; sterigmata slender, to 6 µm long. Paraphyses subclavate, 10-15 x 4-5 µm. Paraphysate hyphae projecting to 15 µm, scanty, with rounded or acuminate apices. Spores allantoid or subnaviculate, bases rounded, apices often acuminate, 5-8 x 1- 5-2 µm, walls smooth, hyaline, 0.2 µm thick; often adhering in pairs or fours.

DISTRIBUTION: Western Europe, New Zealand.

HABITAT: Effused on dead pendent stipes of tree ferns.

Spores are allantoid and often attenuated from rounded bases to apices. Occasional crystals were noted in the tissues of some specimens but were absent from most. The species differs from C. filicinum in the unusual spores, presence of paraphysate hyphae, and subclavate paraphyses. Context hyphae are more strongly developed, slightly thinner, and are without ampullae. Although treated as a subspecies of C. lembosporum by Bourdot & Galzin (1928, p. 208), the plant is sufficiently well defined to maintain as a species.

TYPE LOCALITY: Aveyron, France.