Paesia scaberula
English: Scented fern; Ring Fern; Scented Lace Fern.
Maori: Mātata.
Region: New Zealand.
Habitat: on dry, rocky cliffs; in open areas; prefers a sunny, open situation; tolerant of a range of soil types.
Content: terpenes.
Botany
Identification: yellow-green to yellow, glandular sticky, finely dissected, fragrant fronds; zig-zagged rachises; elongated marginal sori, protected by an inrolled, scarious lamina on the outside of the ultimate segments; membranous (sometimes almost vestigial) indusium on the inside of the ultimate segments.
Fern; terrestrial; lacy, creeping; fast-growing; hardy; up to 115 cm; smell distinctive, delicious when crushed or pelted by rain showers.
Stem: brown stalks.
Roots: deciduous, rhizomatous patch; 7 cm wide; spreads by thin brittle rhizomes; rhizome long-creeping, much branched, stiff and somewhat brittle, 1 to 2 mm diameter, chesnut-brown, densely clad in slender red-brown, bristly hairs.
Stem: stipes 5 to 40 cm, by 1 to 2 mm; stiff; muricate to almost smooth; densely clade in slender, bristly, red-brown hairs, short, glandular, yellow hairs in upper portion.
Leaves: yellow-green; 30 cm tall; lacy, most finely divided; similar to Rabbit's foot fern; rhachis strongly to slightly zig-zagged, strongly muricate to smooth; laminae 2 to 4 pinnate, 10 to 80 cm long, 5 to 35 cm wide, deltoid to ovate or elliptic, stiffly coriaceous to subcoriaceous, adaxially yellow-green to yellow, abaxially, covered by numerous, short, glandular hairs, midirbs bearing bristly red-brown hairs; veins obscure, free; pinnae finely dissected, primary pinnae shortly stalked, 7 to 20 cm long, ± 4 cm wide, ovate to lanceolate, acuminate; secondary pinnae shortly stalked, up to 25 by 10 mm, lanceolate; segments decurrent, pinnatisect to almost pinnate, up to 5 by 2 mm, narrow, sharply toothed or incised, often apiculate.
Sori: usually copious, extending along both margins of segments, but not reaching base or apex; true indusium delicate, often vestigial.