394 Benedict: Revision of the genus Vittaria 



(Type species Pteris scolopendrina Bory) 

 Taeniopteris Hooker, Gen. Fil. pi. 76 B. 1842. 



[Type species Vittaria Forbsei Fee = V. scolopendrina (Bory) 



Thwaites] 



Taeniopsis J. Smith, Jour. Bot. 4: 67. 1841. 



(Type species V. lineata [L.] J. E. Smith) 



Ferns usually of epiphytic habit and of comparatively small 

 dimensions, of herbaceous texture and entirely without sclerenchy- 

 matous tissue; stem slender, creeping, clothed with clathrate 

 scales, the vascular tissue in the form of a tube (siphonostele) or a 

 simple net (dictyostele) ; the phyllotaxy distichous or radial ; 

 leaves usually few, linear to linear-elliptic, usually grass-like in 

 outline, the epidermis with scattered linear cystoliths, the leaf- 

 trace single or double, the venation consisting of a midvein with 

 pinnate branches which anastomose anteriorly to form a row of 

 simple areolae along each side of the midvein; sporangia in two 

 indeterminate submarginal or sometimes practically marginal 

 lines along two continuous receptacles formed by the outer 

 portions of the veinlets, the receptacle usually in a groove often 

 of considerable depth and sometimes with the edges produced so 

 as to serve as an indusium; a true indusium wanting; spores 

 diplanate or triplanate; paraphyses usually present, consisting 

 of large reddish or yellowish cells borne on simple or branching 

 pedicels. 



The generic name Vittaria is fortunately well established. It 

 was based originally on a single species, Pteris lineata L., so that 

 there is no difficulty as to its typification, notwithstanding the 

 fact that by several writers another species has been recognized 

 as type. Pteris lineata has even been made the type of another 

 genus, Taeniopsis J. Smith. Smith based his division of Vittaria 

 on the position of the sporangial line, including in Envittaria the 

 species of the type of V. elongata Sw., in which the fruiting line 

 is practically marginal, the leaf margin being double and including 

 the sporangia between the two lips. This type, however, as 

 Luerssen has shown, is not generically different from that of V. 

 lineata, in which the lines of sporangia are clearly submarginal 

 and dorsal. The extremes of the two types are connected by all 

 possible intermediate forms among the various species. 



Haplopteris Presl was based on the largest species in the genus, 



