UNDERWOOD: REVIEW OF THE GENERA OF FERNS 255 
the type of the genus Polystichum Roth. Linnaeus adopted the 
name Lonchitis (Gen. Pl. 322. 1737) for Plumier’s plants repre- 
sented in AZ. 77, 20, the former being Z. aurita and the latter Z. 
hirsuta. It is thus rational to regard Z. aurita as the type of the 
Linnaean genus. * 
g. ASPLENIUM (1078) appears to have originated generically 
with Tournefort (Inst. 544) where Ceterach, a somewhat common 
European fern, is its only foundation. Linnaeus first used the name 
in Genera Plantarum, 322, in which he cites numerous plates from 
Plumier (13, 19, 41, 46, 59-61, 67, 74, 103, 106, 124, 1331) and 
adds Lingua cervina (= Phyllitis Scolopendrium) and Trichomanes 
(= Asplenium Trichomanes) of Tournefort. In Hort. Cliff. pub- 
lished the same year, he included five species of which Lingua cer- 
vina, Trichomanes, Marina,and Ceterach are European and Plumier's 
plate 59 forms the fifth. The name Asplenium was used by Matthi- 
olus, 1560, and even by Dioscorides. 
In Species Plantarum twenty species are enumerated and as is 
usual the list commences with those with simple leaves, 7/zopAy//a 
(= Camptosorus) being first named ; curiously enough this involves 
three species which range in distribution from Jamaica to Siberia ! 
The genus, however, is a more natural group than many of the 
Linnaean genera, altho several genera have been properly separated 
from among these twenty species. 
We must historically then limit the type of Asplenium to the 
Ceterach officinarum of Bauhin's Pinax and of the other pre-Lin- 
naean herbalists. As this is surely a clearly defined generic group 
distinct from Asplenium although united to it with many other 
strange bedfellows in Synopsis Filicum, the acceptance of the prin- 
ciples of historic interpretation and generic types here followed will 
necessitate the relegation of the numerous species of Asplenium to 
another generic alliance. While changes in nomenclature are 
* This genus well illustrates the ridiculous and confusing practice of the botanists of 
the past generation with reference to generic limits. The genus ** Lowchitis Linn.’’ of 
Hooker and Baker's Synopsis Filicum contains the two species Z. pubescens Willd. 
L. occidentalis Baker with no reference to the original species except a doubtful co 
ent on Z. aurita in a note. 
t While the greater part of these M to Asplenium as used by modern writers, 
plate 13 represents a sterile plant of Peris pungens Willd. and plate I9 represents a 
species of Dig/asium 
