FILICALES. Blechnum capense: Taranaki, Mt. Messenger, 200 m. Blechnum fraseri: Auckland, Mountain Road, Henderson Valley, 250 m. Cyathea dealbata: Auckland, Waiomu Valley, Thames, 80 m. Wellington, Totara Reserve, Pohangina Valley, 200 m; Lake Papaitonga, 20 m. Cyathea smithii: Auckland, Mountain Road, Henderson Valley, 250 m; Lake Rotoehu, 400 m. Otago, Niagara, Catlins. Dicksonia squarrosa: Wellington, Totara Reserve, Pohangina Valley, 100 m. Westland, Harihari, 80 m. Pteridium esculentum: Auckland, Mt. Te Aroha, 350 m.

Hymenophore annual, membranous, adherent, effused forming linear areas to 6 x 1 cm; hymenial surface white, even, becoming deeply laterally creviced; margin thinning out, white, arachnoid, adherent. Context to 80 µm thick, basal layer of a few repent hyphae, intermediate layer of loosely intertwined hyphae branched at a wide angle; generative hyphae 2.5-3 µm diameter, walls 0.25-0.5 µm thick, naked, sometimes inflated between septa, with clamp connections. Hymenial layer to 20 µm deep, a close palisade of basidia and paraphyses. Basidia subclavate, 10-18 x 4-7 µm bearing 4 spores; sterigmata slender, to 8 µm long. Paraphyses pyriform, a few fusiform or subclavate, 6-10 x 4-5 µm. Spores elliptical, obovate with rounded apices and attenuate bases, a few suballantoid, apiculate, 7-8 x 3-3.5 µm, walls smooth, hyaline, 0.2 µm thick; sometimes adhering in fours.

DISTRIBUTION: Western Europe, New Zealand.

HABITAT: Effused on rhizomes or dead pendent stipes of tree ferns.

At first milk-white, the surface of the hymenophore when old may become pallid cream or occasionally pallid mauve. Specific features are the thin context with scanty, widely branched hyphae, shallow hymenial layer, small broad basidia, pyriform paraphyses with acuminate apices, and elliptical or obovate spores. Here found on dead pendent stipes of tree ferns and rhizomes of climbing ferns, in France it has been collected on stipes of Pteris aquilina growing in a similar humid habitat.

TYPE LOCALITY: Aveyron, France.