The Philippine Journal of Science, C. Botany. 
Vol. VII, No. 1, April, 1912. 
THE GENUS THAYERIA. 
By Edwin Bingham Copeland. 
(From the College of Agriculture, University of the Philippines, 
Los Banos, P. I.) 
The genus Thayeria was described by myself about six years 
ago,^ from sterile specimens collected in the mountains north 
of Zamboanga. The type species was given the name T. Cornu- 
copia. It was found on a ridge above the source of the Sax 
River, a hurried visit to the place requiring three days of hard 
travel. I made the trip twice in 1905, the second time for the 
special purpose of finding fruiting fronds of this fern, but 
without success. In the same year I collected sterile specimens 
in Lepanto-Bontoc, but could find none fertile. Baker had de- 
scribed a New Guinea plant collected by Beccari, with essentially 
identical vegetative structures, as Polypodium nectariferump 
and these structures are so peculiar that it seemed probable that 
the fertile fronds were also alike. As far as my specimens 
showed, the identity was so perfect that I ascribed my Luzon 
plant to' Baker’s species, as Thayeria nectarifera. 
Thayeria is a fern of the Drynaria group, as shown unmis- 
takably by the very stout, fleshy rhizome, with a dense coat of 
brown scales, the structure and venation of the leaf, and very 
characteristic splitting off of the segments from the midrib, 
the humus-gathering habit, and various minor details. Its es- 
sential peculiarity is the specialization of branches of the rhi- 
zome, as phyllopodia. Each of these branches bears a single 
large leaf, the lower part of which is very broad, with the sides 
rolled together so as to form a broad cup like a cornucopia. 
The end of the branch is in the bottom of this cup, where it bears 
a dense cluster of roots. In the cup falling leaves and twigs 
collect and decay. Each branch makes therefore a sort of com- 
* This Journal 1 (1906) Supplement 165, Plate 28. 
’ Malesia 2 : 247, Plate 65. 
41 
