ALBERT

Description: 1. Introductory.--This project was to study fern specimens in certain herbaria in the U.S.A., especially of tree-ferns (Cyatheaceae), in connection with preparation of the Pteridophyte Series of Flora Malesiana, and to make contacts in the U.S.A. with a view to continued cooperation in this work. The family Cyatheaceae, on which I am at present engaged, is a particularly difficult one, comprising 350 described species in Malaysia, in a close alliance. Probably all should be regarded as belonging to one genus. Descriptions of species have on the whole been unsatisfactory, so that many identifications of specimens in herbaria are doubtful or erroneous. It is thus necessary to see all type specimens to establish the significance of names; and also, as the fronds are large so that only a part of one appears on each herbarium sheet, the different specimens of the same collection, distributed to different herbaria, often give complementary information, so that to see one is not enough. Furthermore, it is necessary to see as many collections as possible, to understand what variation is possible within a species. The material is bulky, and it is a physical impossibility to gather together in one place all that one needs to see for a proper understanding of the family. I had already spent more than a year on this study before going to the U.S.A., and had seen most of the type material in European herbaria.

Description: The preparation of a new account of the pteridophytes of the whole Malayan region is a very large undertaking, and when one is at the beginning of it, one cannot foresee what may happen during the course of its execution. It is in part a voyage of discovery. The work will have to be done in stages, and published in parts. To wait until it is all completed, and then to coordinate and re-arrange it before publication, would mean an unreasonably long delay. But to publish it in parts will inevitably mean that one will have new ideas about the early parts as one works on the later ones. My hope is that, when the work is finished, it will be possible to have a new and better conception of the inter-relations of the parts. Present schemes for definition of families for the great majority of ferns are no more than tentative, and that is one reason why I see no need to carry out the work in any pre-arranged sequence.

Description: The next monographic study which will be undertaken for the series Pteridophyta of the Flora Malesiana will be devoted to the tree ferns of the Cyatheaceae. In connection with the large size of these plants and the desirability of having more and complete material at our disposal, the following notes are addressed to field collectors who may be in a position to obtain specimens. For securing essential parts tree ferns appear less unmanageable than they may look at first sight.

Description: A fern plant consists of a stem, bearing leaves and roots. The leaves (or some of them) bear dehiscent sporangia, each sporangium containing unicellular spores, which are in most cases Wind-dispersed. A spore germinates to produce a small green plant called a prothallus. The Prothallus bears sexual organs ( archegonia and antheridia). After fertilization by an antherozoid, the female cell in an archegonium grows to form a new fern plant. The life cycle of a fern thus has two phases, asexual (the fern plant) and sexual (the prothallus). These phases are also called the sporophyte and the, gametophyle. The sporophyte is much longer-lived, larger and more diversified than the gametophyte, and its characters are mainly used in taxonomy. The following statement deals with the parts of the sporophyte in turn, with discussion of the kinds of modification of each which occur, and of special terminology. Finally, a note on the gametophyte will be given, including reference to the not infrequent condition in which the sexual process is omitted. Stem, (a) Shape, size, and habit of growth.—A fern stem may be long and creeping or limbing, in which case it is usually called a rhizome, or it may be short and compact, in which case it is often called a stock, rootstock or caudex. If it grows erect, as in tree-ferns, with a tuft of leaves at its apex, it is called a trunk.

Description: 1. Sporangia in two rows, embedded in an almost terete spike . . . . . . Ophioglossum 1. Sporangia on branches of the fertile segment of a frond.

Description: CARL FREDRICK ALBERT CHRISTENSEN (1872-1942) was the founder of modern fern taxonomy. To appreciate the scope of his work, it is necessary to understand the confusions of thought on the subject which persisted through the 19th century and were still evident in the summary prepared (by DIELS) for ENGLER & PRANTL’S Pflanzenfamilien in 1899. CHRISTENSEN’S first great work was his Index Filicum (1905-6) in which he listed all known fern binomials and also relegated many to synonymy. In the main he adopted the classification and nomenclature of DIELS. While preparing the Index he came to realize that many generic concepts accepted in the Index were unnatural or confused. This was especially evident in the great complex of species which he listed under the name Dryopteris. He next made a study of the tropical American species of that complex, and in so doing discovered how to separate them into natural groups (1913, 1920). At the time I first made contact with him (about 1925) he had begun to study ferns of the Old World tropics. I maintained a regular correspondence with him from 1925 to 1940, and sent him many specimens for identification. I also met him in Europe in 1930, 1934 and 1938 and had long discussions with him. I benefited from his wisdom also indirectly through the publications of R. C. CHING, who studied with CHRISTENSEN in 1929-1932 and applied CHRISTENSEN’S ideas to Chinese and Indian ferns in an important series of papers in the 1930s. CHRISTENSEN’S identifications of my collections and his comments upon them were the basis on which my own work was built; in the present Series of Flora Malesiana I have tried to extend his methods and his ideas to a much wider range of species than he could have encountered. To him I am profoundly grateful, and I am concerned also to acknowledge my debt, through him, to some perceptive earlier workers, notably G. H. METTENIUS and JOHN SMITH. The objectives of any scheme of biological classification are to show natural relationships and to provide a means for the identification of individual organisms. It has sometimes been suggested that only the latter objective is important, and that a ‘practical’ scheme is all that is needed. The history of fern classification has shown that artificial schemes, made without thought as to relationships, do not work; and distribution-maps based on such schemes are meaningless. Fern classification as understood today should be based not only on gross-morphological characters but also on microscopical characters pertaining to the fern's anatomy, indument, spores, gametophytes, etc., and on cytotaxonomy.

Description: A list of books and papers dealing with the taxonomy of Malaysian ferns, published subsequent to Christensen, Index Filicum, Suppl. 3 (1934)

Description: As has been done in Series I, Flowering Plants, it seems useful to complete the volume with worthwhile additions and corrections. Page numbers are provided with either a or b denoting the left and right columns respectively.

Description: In November 1989 we received from Professor R.E. Holttum his last manuscript for Flora Malesiana. He must have worked for many years to finish this publication on a very difficult group of ferns. For several reasons, not in the least because the manuscript was by no means small, it took a long time before the editing and typesetting were finished. Many new names were given and taxa described by Professor Holttum. Since new taxa are no longer published in Flora Malesiana (new style), this precursor on new species and varieties (and a few new combinations) is published in Blumea, later this year to be followed by the complete revision in Flora Malesiana, series II, volume 2¹, Pteridophyta. The following new species and varieties are described here: Tectaria andersonii, T. brevilobata, T. coadunata (J. Sm.) C. Chr. var. minor, T. croftii, T. curtisii Holttum var. hendersonii, T. danfuensis, T. devexa (Kunze ex Mett.) Copeland var. novoguineensis, T. exauriculata, T. filisquamata, T. griffithii (Baker) C. Chr. var. singaporeana and var. amplissima, T. inopinata, T. jacobsii, T. lobbii (Hook.) Copeland var. denticulata and var. allosora, T. macrota, T. microchlamys, T. microlepis, T. moussetii, T. nabirensis, T. nesiotica, T. palmata (Mett.) Copeland var. sumatrana and var. dimorpha, T. rheophytica, T. rigida, T. rufescens, T. schmutzii, T. squamipes, T. subtrilobata, T. subcordata, T. suluensis, T. villosa; Chlamydogramme elata; Cyclopeltis rigida; Heterogonium lobulatum; Lastreopsis novoguineensis. The following new combinations are made: Tectaria devaxa (Kunze ex Mett.) Copeland var. minor (Hook.) Holttum, comb, nov., T. palmata (Mett.) Copeland var. platanifolia (Mett.) Holttum, stat. nov.

Description: The new scheme of classification presented in this paper is based on the examination of all species in the family Thelypteridaceae which I have been able to trace in the Old World. I have gradually compiled a list of about 700 names (basionyms) and have examined type or other authentic material of all but a small proportion; and in the course of study of specimens in many herbaria I have noted about another 50 species which appear to be undescribed. I have attempted to re-describe all the previously-named species, noting characters not mentioned in existing descriptions, especially the detailed distribution of hairs and glands, including those on the body and stalk of sporangia, and characters of spores. It is probable that there remain some published names, not yet detected by me, which refer to species of the family, but I think there are not many. I have also made a study of all generic and infrageneric names which are typifiable by species of Thelypteridaceae, and in doubtful cases I have tried to clarify and fix the typification. As already reported in the second paper of this series (Blumea 18: 195—215), I have had the help of Dr. U. Sen and Miss N. Mittra in examining anatomical and other microscopic characters of some type species, and hope to present further information of this kind later.