NO. 4 NEW GENUS OF FERNS FROM PERU — MAXON 3 



Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, No. 619807, collected along 

 the Arroyo Railway, in the mountains back of Lima, Peru, March, 

 1892, by W. E. Safford (No. 989). 



Saffordia need be compared only with Trachypteris, Doryopteris, 

 and Notholaena. In its paleaceous vestiture and to a lesser extent in 

 form it resembles certain species of Notholaena, as, for example, the 

 Mexican N. aurantiaca D. C. Eaton; but from this genus it is ex- 

 cluded by its strictly areolate venation and by the position of its sori, 

 which are borne in a rather broad continuous band, largely upon the 

 leaf tissue, instead of upon the tips of the veins. The margin, more- 

 over, is involute, instead of revolute, and has neither the form nor the 

 function of an indusium. 



Doryopteris, to which Saffordia has already been likened, is a small 

 genus of world-wide distribution, a part of whose species not only 

 resemble it in general form but have a very similar, though coarser, 

 areolate venation. From these, which are devoid of scales upon the 

 lamina, Saffordia departs widely in its dense paleaceous covering, in 

 the absence of any indusium whatever, and in its more ample soriation. 



Despite obvious differences in form and habit Saffordia is probably 

 more closely related to Trachypteris. This little known South Ameri- 

 can genus, described in 1899, is currently regarded as consisting of a 

 single species, T. pinnata (Hook, f.) C. Chr., first described (in 1847) 

 as Hemionitis pinnata from specimens collected by Charles Darwin 

 upon Charles Island of the Galapagos group, and again a few years 

 later (in 1854) by the elder Hooker (upon other material from the 

 same islands) as Acrostichum aureonitens, the name under which it has 

 since been best known. Subsequently it was referred to several other 

 genera and was finally (in 1899) placed by Diels as a new section 

 (Heteroglossum) of Elaphoglossum, in the tribe Acrosticheae. In 

 the same year Andre's generic name, Trachypteris, was proposed for 

 it by Christ, who regarded it as closely allied to Elaphoglossum. Mean- 

 while its range had been extended by the discovery of specimens in 

 the Andes of Ecuador ; also, another species had been described from 

 Minas Geraes, in southern Brazil, as Acrostichum Gillianum Baker. 

 The latter is placed by Christ as a form of T. pinnata, having ternately 

 divided instead of pinnate sporophyls. Specimens with sporophyls 

 of somewhat intermediate form, collected in Bolivia by R. S. Williams 

 (No. 1 177), were regarded by Underwood as representing an addi- 

 tional species. Without a critical study of all the material it is diffi- 

 cult to say whether one or several species are here involved. It is 

 sufficient for the purposes of the present paper to point out that the 



