FILICES, 089 
CRYPTOGAMIA. 
VASCULARES. 
Order CLXI. FILICES. 
With unimportant exceptions, Hooker and Baker’s ‘Synopsis Filicum’ is followed 
here, both for genera and species; therefore it is convenient to adopt the same classifi- 
cation. The number of genera retained in the second edition of the work * in question 
is seventy-six, and the number of distinct species now known is about 3000, spread over 
nearly the whole face of the earth where vegetation exists. Fournier, who has mono- 
graphed the Mexican Ferns, takes, like many other pteridologists, a much narrower 
view of species, thus making a much larger total. The late Sir William Hooker and 
Mr. Baker’s determinations and limitations of the species have been accepted almost 
throughout, without any attempt at revision; but the names of many of Fournier's 
segregate species, as well as some of those of other writers, which are reduced by 
Mr. Baker, either in the Kew Herbarium, or in the Kew copy of Fournier’s monograph 
of the Mexican Ferns, are cited in the following enumeration after the collectors’ 
numbers. An exception to Mr. Baker’s naming are the considerable collections recently 
made in North-eastern Mexico by Schaffner, and Parry and Palmer, which were not 
‘incorporated in the herbarium at the time when we looked through it to extract the 
localities and other particulars of the species found within our limits. Prof. Eaton, 
‘however, has published them, and they are included here; but it should be mentioned 
that it is probable that some of the same forms may in consequence occur under two 
names, especially as Fournier includes a collection made by Schaffner in the same region. 
In the Phanerogamia the rule generally observed with regard to references was to cite 
the work in which the name given was first published; in the Ferns it has not been 
deemed necessary to attempt this difficult task. 
The Ferns of Costa Rica and Nicaragua are still comparatively unknown; from 
the former country there are only about fifty species in the Kew Herbarium, forty- 
eight of which were collected by Mr. P. G. Harrison in 1884, and include six novelties. 
Suborder I. GLEICHENIACEAE. 
Restricted to Gleichenia and the monotypic Australian Platyzoma. 
l. GLEICHENIA. 
-Gleichenia, Smith; Hook. et Bak. Syn. Fil. p. 11, et ed. 2, p. 449, t. 1. fig. 2. 
Twenty-seven species widely spread in warm countries, but most numerous in 
* The pagination is exactly the same in the first and second editions up to page 448, the additions being 
given in the form of an appendix. 
+ The numbers of species are taken from the second edition of the ‘ Synopsis Filicum? and will be too low 
in some instances, as Baker and others have published many species since that was issued, 
