ALBERT

Description: Since the completion of Radlkofer’s monumental work on the Sapindaceae in Engler’s series “Das Pflanzenreich” 50 years have now elapsed, almost 40 since its publication. It is still the basis of virtually all taxonomic studies in the family. Some of the gerontogean genera have since been the subject of revisional work (Leenhouts 1969, 1971), but for the neogean representatives there are only some regional treatments (e.g. Rambo 1952; Barkley 1957; Reitz 1962; Soukup 1969), apart from descriptions of new taxa scattered through the literature. When studying the taxa native to Suriname in connection with the preparation of a supplement to the family treatment published previously in the “Flora of Suriname” (Uittien 1937) it soon became apparent to me that the genus Talisia was particularly incompletely known when Uittien published his account of the family, actually not much more than an extract from Radlkofer’s work. The number of species known or to be expected from Suriname proved to have doubled; this is not due to inadequateness of Uittien’s work but to much more extensive collecting. Two of the species met with since could not be identified with any species dealt with by Radlkofer or described after his time: these are described as new below. In order to establish that they were truly undescribed the descriptions and, where possible, types and/or other authentic specimens of all species described after Radlkofer were checked. A list of these follows; it may serve as a kind of bibliographic supplement to Radlkofer’s monograph. The two species marked with an asterisk have been posthumously listed in the supplement to his work.

Description: In a forthcoming publication (Kramer, in prep.) floristic and taxonomic data of the pteridophyte flora of Suriname will be assembled, with keys and notes on their local distribution and ecological preference. The present paper deals with the geographical distribution of Suriname pteridophytes beyond the boundaries of Suriname (Fig. 2), a subject that lies beyond the scope of a local fern Flora. In the past, some (but relatively not very many) authors of fern Floras included a paragraph on the distribution of the taxa (Posthumus, 1928; Christensen, 1932; Backer & Posthumus, 1939). In some other fern Floras some space is devoted to ecology, but very little to geography (Holttum, 1954). In still others, considerations of a general kind on ecology and geography are altogether lacking (Vareschi, 1969). Lyell (1870), in his rather little-known book on the distribution of ferns, tried to bring together all the data known at his time; his work is now, of course, almost exclusively of historical significance.

Description: In February and early March, 1961, the senior author spent three weeks on a small savanna in the approximate centre of Suriname, South of Tafelberg, (map 1). He was accompanied by Mr. W. H. A. Hekking. The time was spent in exploring the flora of the savanna and the adjacent forest. As a detailed study of the vegetation of the savannas of northern Suriname was then in progress, several extensive papers being in preparation (Heyligers, 1963; Van Donselaar, 1965; Van Donselaar-Ten Bokkel Huinink, 1966), it was felt that a more thorough inventory of the vegetation and the flora of the savanna might be rewarding. When a general impression of the plant-cover of the area had been obtained, eight representative sample-plots were selected, their vegetation was analyzed and described after the method of the French-Swiss school of phytosociology, and pits were dug in the soil down to bedrock, samples being taken in every distinctive-looking layer. This work was carried out jointly by the senior author and W. H. A. Hekking; part of the floristic exploration was also done by or with Dr. R. M. Tryon, Harvard Herbarium, Cambridge, Mass. The results are here presented. It was felt that in order to integrate them with those obtained elsewhere in Suriname, the collaboration of a specialist familiar with the Suriname savannas in general was required. This was the junior author’s task, who, after his prolonged work on the savannas of northern Suriname, later expanded his work to those of the southern part of the country. The preliminary results of the last-named study are in the press; more detailed field work is in progress as this paper goes to the press.

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 recent times very little has been published on the fern flora of French Guiana. In 1918, R. BONAPARTE published a list of fern specimens, collected chiefly by Leprieur and Mélinon (p. 365: Guyane franςaise, plusieurs collecteurs, herbier du Prince Bonaparte; apart from some scattered notes in other volumes of Notes Ptéridologiques); POSTHUMUS’s records of ferns from that region, which are included in his work on the ferns of Surinam (1928), were partly based on Bonaparte’s work, but comparatively little new material had been added to the existing collections. Consequently, when Mme M. Tardieu-Blot informed me that the Paris herbarium contained some unidentified collections of Pteridophytes from that region, I accepted willingly her offer to study them. In this paper are enumerated new or critical or in some other respects interesting records of ferns from the material concerned. It is regrettable that most collections do not possess indications of precise localities, or even lack collectors names, numbers, or both; it is supposed that most of these specimens have been collected by Leprieur.

Description: Tapeinidium is the second largest of the Lindsaeoid fern genera. In the present study 17 species are distinguished. Until Tapeinidium was recognized as a genus its species were included in Microlepia, where it was originally described as an infrageneric division, or in Davallia. Fée (1852), then Diels (1902), treated it as a genus, but under the incorrectly interpreted name Wibelia Bernhardi, which is actually a synonym of Davallia (see Copeland, 1947). The species described so far have mainly been distinguished by their leaf architecture, especially the degree of dissection; see, e.g., van Alderwerelt van Rosenburgh (1909). In my opinion this is at best one of several useful characters. At least equally important is the structure of the petiole and the other axes of the lamina, a character diat proved to be very valuable for diagnostic purposes in the neotropical Lindsaea species (Kramer, 1957a) but is much less serviceable in the paleotropical ones. In some cases the rhizome scales are also distinctive. These characters have been grossly neglected in the past, and the species distinguished by most authors are generally far too widely circumscribed. Diels (l.c.), for example, listed three species at a time when more than twice as many were known. Accordingly there proved to be a surprisingly large number of undescribed species, viz. 8 out of the 17 recognized here, some of them represented by numerous specimens in many herbaria and collected long ago but never recognized, e.g., T. novoguineense and T. melanesicum. This contrasts sharply with the situation in Lindsaea in the same region where the number of new species is comparatively very small and relatively many more species have to be placed in synonymy.

Description: In the Flora Malesiana area recent authors have distinguished the following genera in the Lindsaea group of ferns: Isoloma J. Smith, Lindsaea Dryander (often misspelled “Lindsaya”; see Copeland 1947, p. 53, and Kramer 1957a, p. 156), Odontosoria Fee, Protolindsaya Copeland, Schizoloma Gaudichaud (or Schizolegnia Alston), Sphenomeris Maxon, Tapeinidium (Presl) C. Christensen, and Xyropteris Kramer. In my account of the American species (Kramer 1957a) I included the Asiatic genus Schizolepton Fee in the Lindsaea group, on Copeland’s authority, without sufficiently looking into the matter. Holttum (1958) has shown since that its affinities are with Syngramma and has subsequently (1960) combined it with Taenitis, although Pichi-Sermolli (1966) denies any close affinity of the two last-named genera. As stated before (Kramer 1957a, 1967) I am convinced that Schizoloma cannot be maintained as a distinct genus and prefer to treat it as a section of Lindsaea. With regard to Isoloma I have reached the same conclusion, as explained below. Odontosoria sensu stricto does not occur in Asia. Xyropteris is still monotypical, as originally described (Kramer 1957b), and Tapeinidium, including Protolindsaya, as correctly stated by Christensen (1934), forms the subject of a separate paper (Kramer 1968). The notes in the present paper can thus be restricted to Lindsaea and Sphenomeris.

Description: In the spring of 1968 and 1969 the two senior authors visited the Maltese Islands of Malta and Gozo and collected and photographed plants. The entire herbarium collection amounts to about 350 numbers. The first set is deposited in the herbarium of the State University of Utrecht; duplicates were sent chiefly to the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh. Critical determination of the material yielded some results which may be interesting from a floristictaxonomic viewpoint and are therefore reported below. Beside herbarium material fruits and seeds were collected; the samples that germinated were investigated cytotaxonomically by the two junior authors. The results are also presented in the following. The first truly comprehensive account of the flora of the Maltese Islands is by Sommier & Caruana Gatto (1912-1915); it includes also the lower cryptogams. The older literature is also reviewed there. It is fairly complete and, for its time, taxonomically reasonably up to date. Then the Maltese botanist J. Borġ published his “Descriptive flora of the Maltese Islands” (1927), dealing only with vascular plants. This flora, on the other hand, was taxonomically antiquated even when it was published, reflecting the state of knowledge of plant taxonomy of some decades earlier, and therefore nomenclaturally also very much out of date. Since that time Malta has had very little attention in the botanical literature. Some notes or brief paragraphs are devoted to its flora in such general books as Adamović’s “Die pflanzengeographische Stellung und Gliederung Italiens” (1933) and Rikli’s “Das Pflanzenkleid der Mittelmeerlander” (2nd ed. 1943-48). In 1960 Lanfranco published his “Guide to the flora of Malta with 300 illustrations”. The plants included in it are a rather arbitrary selection from Borġ’s flora, whose nomenclature is also uncritically followed. A modern flora, with keys, is lacking.

Description: The present paper is the first of a series of regional revisions of the Old World Lindsaeoid ferns centering around a revision of the group in the Flora Malesiana area where the largest number of species occurs. In the few cases where modern revisions are already available the present author’s contribution will be limited to critical and additional notes; otherwise they will be in the nature of monographic treatments, although widespread species will, of course, as a rule not be described more than once. The botanically isolated position of New Caledonia is well-known, and most floristic phytogeographers agree in regarding it as a separate floristic region (e.g. Good, 1947; Van Balgooy, 1960). Endemism is high in the ferns as well as in the flowering plants, although the number of endemic fern genera is very small (Brownlie, 1965). In the absence of a comprehensive modern fern flora I am unable to quote any reliable figures. The last paper dealing with the New Caledonian fern flora as a whole by Fournier (1873) is nearly 100 years old. Later contributions were made notably by Copeland (1929b), Christensen (in: Däniker, 1932), and Guillaumin (1962- 1964). Christ (1910), on the basis of Fournier’s (1873) data, reported 259 species, 86 endemic, but stated that Fournier’s species concept was apparently too narrow (p. 234), which I can confirm for the Lindsaea group, as shown by the synonymy in the present paper. On the other hand, additional species have been found or distinguished since. A more important factor limiting our knowledge of endemism in the New Caledonian ferns (and other plants) is, I think, the poor state of knowledge of the Melanesian flora, particularly of the Solomon Islands. The exploration that is now in progress in this archipelago may be expected to furnish important additional data.