Order MARATTIALES 
By LucigN Marcus UNDERWOOD 
Sporophytes with more or less tuberous or fleshy, often very stout, tough 
rootstocks, soft fleshy roots, and coarse, cespitose, usually more or less pin- 
nately divided, stipulate, articulate leaves with circinnate vernation. Sporangia 
abaxial, developed from a group of epidermal and subepidermal cells (euspo- 
rangiate), separate or (as in all the American species) coalescent (6- ), form- 
ing 2-rowed or circular synangia, exannulate, opening by terminal pores or 
longitudinal slits. Spores uniform Chomosporous), diplanate or triplanate, 
ephemeral. 
Gametophytes (prothallia) green, flat. 
(A single family :) ’' Fam.1. MARATTIACEAE. 
VOLUME 16, Part 1, 1909] 15 
