MEMOIRS 
OF THE 
TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB 
Yol VI a; 
A Review of the Genera of Ferns proposed prior to 1832 
By LuciEN Marcus UNDERWOOD 
The problem involved in the natural limitations of fern genera 
has given rise to as much difference of opinion as any question 
connected with the systematic study of plants, as the amount of 
literature bearing on the subject fully attests. With slight modi- 
fications and differences, the later Hookerian * system of a few 
genera founded mostly on purely artificial characters has hitherto 
been followed in America and has no doubt been productive of 
advantage in the study of so limited a flora as our own, because 
of its simplicity ; but the time has passed for this sort of contrac- 
tion and we must look at fern genera from the broader standpoint 
of other English and continental writers and attempt to replace 
the unjust, unnatural, and unscientific system that has become 
stereotyped worldwide by its advantage of utility, by other and 
better systems that have been proposed. 
We have characterized this system as the /a#r Hookerian 
system since it is strikingly in contrast with the one faithfully por- 
trayed in the elder Hooker's Genera Filicum, whose merit was 
really due, as stated in the preface to that work, to its high artistic 
character, reflecting through the power of Bauer's splendid deline- 
ations the system already proposed by Presl in a masterly yet far 
more simple manner. 
* As expressed by Sir W. J. Hooker in Species /i/icum, and Hooker and Baker in 
Synopsis Filicum. The leading differences heretofore maintained by American botan- 
ists have been: (1) The separation of Phegopteris from Polypodium, (2) The separa- 
tion of Camptosorus from Scolopendrium and ( 3) The unfortunate union of Aspidium 
and JVepArodium. 
(941) 
