BENEDICT: REVISION OF THE GENUS VITTARIA 397 
Necker retains Péeris to include, as he writes, ‘‘frondes compositae.”’ 
In Oetosis, however, the leaves are ‘‘simplices,’’ and it is reasonable 
to suppose that he meant to include under this name all the 
Linnaean species of Pteris with simple leaves. In the 1753 Species 
Plantarum there are four of these, but by 1767 two others had 
been added, and this is also the number in Murray’s edition of the 
Systema Naturae of 1784. This fact seems to have been over- 
looked by Dr. Greene, but it was noted by Kuntze, who in at- 
tempting to validate Oetosis, selected as type of the genus the 
first species named in the later Linnaean works, i. e. Pteris pilo- 
selloides L., which, however, was not among the four known to 
Linnaeus in 1753. Thi: would identify the genus with a group 
of the tribe Polypodieae, now known either as Drymoglossum 
Presl, or perhaps more properly as Pteropsis Desvaux. 
It is probably unnecessary to pursue further the ignis fatiuus 
of a type for Oetosis, but it may be stated with certainty as addi- 
tional confirmation of the invalidity of this name that Necker’s 
description does not, as was Dr. Greene’s main contention, fit 
Pieris lineata better than any other of the simple Pterides known 
to Linnaeus. The specific phrase which he cited as diagnostic, 
“‘lineae parallelae,’’ may be applied as well to the Pieris pilosel- 
loides of Linnaeus, but it is scarcely probable that Necker had 
any thought of distinguishing generically between one species 
which has sporangial lines exactly parallel as in Vittaria lineata, 
and another in which the lines diverge from the parallel one or 
two degrees as in Linnaeus’s Pieris lanceolata and others. 
Subgenus RApIOVITTARIA Benedict, Bull. Torrey Club 38: 166. 
IgI 
Stem radial, phyllotaxy polystichous, leaf-trace always single, 
stem and petioles brown, owing to the highly developed collen- 
chyma. Spores diplanate, paraphyses with cupuliform terminal 
cells. 
The radial stem structure and leaf arrangement as well as the 
specialized collenchyma (see Fic. 6) serve to separate the species 
included from the other species of the genus, which also show a 
much wider range of characters. 
In the key which follows, the species are arranged as nearly as 
