Notes on Malaysian Ferns, with Descriptions of a New Genus and New Species

Abstract

Various authors have commented on the doubtful position of the species originally described as Aspidium boryanum Willd. In Christensen's Index Filicum (1905) this species was included in the comprehensive Dryopteris, but when that complex is resolved into its very diverse elements, A. boryanum Willd. does not fall clearly into any of them. Christensen himself (Dansk Bot. Ark. 7: 63, 1932) stated that A. boryanum and some allied species 'agree with several Asiatic species of Athyrium' and that 'the natural treatment would be to refer these species to a new genus near Athyrium or to a subgenus of it'. He did not however establish such a new genus. Tagawa transferred A. boryanum to Athyrium in 1935 (Acta Phytotax. et Geobot. 4: 144) and Ching also adopted this position (Lingnan Sc. Journ. 15: 396, I936). When preparing my book on the ferns of the Malay Peninsula (i954) I also placed the species in Athyrium (p. 567) but unfortunately I confused itwith another species which is a true Athyrium (or Diplazium). Copeland (Gen. Fil. 123, 1947) transferred the species to Ctenitis. Finally, MadameTardieuBlot has transferred it to the genus Cornopteris Nakai (Mem. Inst. Sci. Madag. B, 7: 30, 1956; also Amer. Fern Journ. 48: 32, 1958). In October 1957, and in the following months, I visited several times the forest on Mt. Gedeh in Java, near the Tjibodas garden (part of the Kebun Raya Indonesia of Bogor), and there saw A. boryanum growing abundantly, and along with it was Hemionitis opaca Don (Dryopteris opaca of the original Index Filicum) which is very close to the type species of Cornopteris and was transferred to Cornopteris by Tagawa in 1939. I compared these two species carefully, and was convinced that they did not belong to the same genus. I am equally sure that A. boryanum does not belong to the genus Ctenitis.