The Philippine Journal of Science, C. Botany. 
Vol. XII, No. 6, November, 1917. 
THE GENUS CHRISTIOPTERIS 
By Edwin Bingham Copeland 
This genus was described by me in 1915.^ The original de- 
scription is in error in the spelling of the generic name, which 
was written Christiopteris, and in the statement that there are 
no paraphyses. In reality, there are present few and small 
paraphyses, sometimes branched near the head. The type spe- 
cies, Christiopteris Sagitta Copel., was originally described by 
Christ from sterile material, as a Polypodium of the section 
Phymatodes. Superficially, this sterile frond certainly suggests 
relationship to Phymatodes so strongly that its reference to that 
group is easily understood. On the basis of its fruiting charac- 
ters, I first ascribed to the fern a position in the subtribe 
Taenitideae, next to Drymoglossum. 
A little later, I was fortunate enough to find fruiting material 
in the neighborhood from which Christ’s sterile specimens had 
come, and published a photograph of this.^ At about the same 
time, sterile material from Rizal Province, Luzon, was sent to 
Christ, who was disposed to regard it as a distinct species; 
similar fronds from Mount Apo, Mindanao, have the same form. 
It has never been found fertile in Mindanao, although I have 
since found it sterile on Mount Matutum also. Mindanao speci- 
mens are characterized by short, relatively rounded lobes of 
the sterile frond ; but as the sterile fronds of Luzon plants which 
are not yet adult pass through such a stage, it is safer for the 
present to regard all Philippine specimens as belonging to the • 
one species. 
The genus is characterized by dimorphous fronds, the fertile 
strongly contracted, the fructification acrostichoid but not reach- 
ing to midrib or margin. The sporangium-bearing region, which 
may properly be called a hymenium, is rather more vigorous 
over the veinlets, but extends without a break over the pa- 
renchyma. The veinlets of the sterile frond anastomose freely, 
in the manner very familiar in Phymatodes, Drynaria, etc., with 
the characteristic branched included free veinlets. The annulus 
is of about 14 cells, and the spores are reniform or bilateral, 
never tetrahedral. 
The next publication on this genus was by Christ.* Christ 
^Perkins, J., Frag. FI. Philip. (1905) 188. 
“Philip. Journ. Sci. 1, (1906) Suppl. pi. IS. 
“Journ. de Bot. II 1 (1908) 24. 
331 
