SAFFORDIA, A NEW GENUS OF FERNS FROM PERU 



By WILLIAM R. MAXON 



(With Two Plates) 



Among- a small lot of ferns gathered in the mountains of Peru by 

 Mr. W. E. Safford, in 1892, and presented by him to the U. S. National 

 Museum, there are several sheets of the peculiar species here dis- 

 cussed. As may be seen from the accompanying illustrations the 

 specimens have the habit and general outline of most species of 

 Doryopteris, and at the same time the dense covering of closely 

 imbricate scales which is characteristic of Trachypteris. Their 

 venation, which is minutely areolate, without included veinlets, is 

 almost exactly that of Trachypteris, yet the fronds differ materially 

 in structure, particularly in being uniform rather than dimorphous, 

 and otherwise indicate no immediate relationship to the species of 

 that genus ; nor were repeated efforts successful in associating the 

 plants with any published species or group of species. Accordingly 

 specimens were sent to Kew, to Georg Hieronymus in Berlin, to Dr. 

 H. Christ, and to Mr. Carl Christensen, Copenhagen, for identification 

 or for suggestions as to relationship. The replies elicited were alike 

 in regarding this species as unpublished and as lacking any very near 

 relatives, specifically. Further study having shown that it cannot 

 properly be placed in any of the genera hitherto described, without 

 unduly extending their limits, it is accordingly here recognized as 

 the type of a new genus, a conclusion which Mr. Christensen also 

 regards as correct. 



The writer has had peculiar pleasure in dedicating this genus to its 

 collector, whose ability and keen enthusiasm in the study of the natural 

 sciences are hardly less notable than his researches in ethnology and 

 his generous spirit of helpfulness to his associates. 



SAFFORDIA Maxon, new genus 



Fronds small, uniform, stiffly erect, fasciculate from a short densely 

 paleaceous rhizome; stipes stout, firm, polished, densely paleaceous, 

 the scales imbricate, deciduous ; lamina deltoid-pentagonal, pinnately 

 parted, the basal segments strongly basiscopic, pinnately parted ; leaf 

 tissue rigid, densely appressed-paleaceous beneath, the scales closely 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 61, No. 4 



