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American ferns— VIII, A preliminary review of the North American 
Gleicheniaceae 
Luci—EN Marcus UNDERWOOD 
The oldest known of the American representatives of this 
family was figured by Plumier in 1703 (plate 28) and this plate 
was taken by Linnaeus in 1753 as the type of Pteris dichotoma and 
in 1759 as thetype of Acrostichum furcatum. After various vicissi- 
tudes this oldest species of the genus—probably because of 
its rarity, for it grows, apparently, only in the extinct craters of 
the Lesser Antilles —passed into forgotten synonymy. The first 
recognition of generic value in the family was made in 1793, by 
Sir J. E. Smith, who based the genus G/eichenia on Onoclea poly- 
podioides of Linnaeus, an Australian species. This was followed 
in 1804 by Willdenow’s genus Mertensia, based on five pectinate 
Species, part of which were American. This generic name could 
not hold because of the earlier Mertensia Roth (1793) in the 
Boraginaceae ; and this fact was noted as early as 1806, by 
Bernhardi, who then established the genus Dicranofteris in its place, 
basing his name on Polypodium dichotomum Thunb. from Japan.* 
It is this genus to which our American species pertain. 
Robert Brown published Platyzoma in 1810 with a single Aus- 
tralian species, and in 1861 Mettenius established Stromatopteris 
with a single species from New Caledonia.t We believe that all of 
these represent valid genera and may be separated by the following 
tabulated characters: 
fensia for a fern genus was preoccupied and substituted the name Mesosorus for it. 
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