COMPENDIUM 



OF THE ORDERS, SUBORDERS, FAMILIES 

 AND GENERA. 



ORDER FILICALES. 



Mostly green plants with 2 distinct generations, a pro-embryonal and 

 an embryonal one, the pro-embryonal generation consisting of a minute, 

 tuberous or more commonly flat or filiform, white or green, simple, entire, 

 incised or branched, not rarely rudimentary thalloid plant (prothallium) 

 with hair-hke roots and bearing 1 or more cf and (or) 9 prominent, 

 tuberculiform or immersed organs (antheridia, archegonia). The embryonal 

 generation, i. e. the normal, cormophytical plant with a stem (rhizome, 

 caudex) and true roots, stalks (stipes) and leaves (fronds) traversed by 

 1 or more fibro-vascular bundles (steles) and producing capsules (sporangia) 

 vdth spores, develops when a ripe archegonium (9) is fecundated by the 

 spiral-shaped spermatozoids of a ripe antheridium (cf ). 



Stems short or elongate, solid, rarely tuberous or cavernous, not 

 articulate, smooth or scaly, sometimes prickly, mostly less strongly 

 developed than the fronds, simple or branched, if branched, the 

 branches not placed in whorls, with the fronds circinate or folded in 

 the bud. 



Fronds seriate, aggregate or placed in spirals or whorls, not laterally 

 connected, the fertile ones (sporophylla) neither gathered in terminal or 

 lateral spikes, nor bearing solitary sporangia on the upper (inner) side at 

 the base (in the axil). 



SUBORDGll I. FIlilCES (Isospore Filicales, True Ferns). 

 Fronds simple or variously divided, circinate in the bud; sporo- 

 phylla normal-shaped, not rarely more or less contracted, not 

 metamorphosed, bearing many to numerous sporangia on the 



