Abstract

In 1906 Matsumura and Hayata listed 20 species of the Hymenophyllaceae from Formosa (1906: 564-569). In 1936 Masamune listed 32 species in his Short Flora of Formosa (1936: 1-3). and in 1954 he listed 44 species in his mimeographed paper on 'A list of vascular plants of Taiwan' (1954: 4-5). Copeland (1947: 30-42) divided this family int0 31 genera and according to his classification we would have representatives from 15 0f them. Many have followed Copeland in accepting these 31 divisions as genera, others much prefer to place nearly all the filmy ferns in the two well known genera: Hymenophyllum and Trichomanes. (Christensen, 1906: 356-370, 634-652; Nakai, 1926: 239-270.) This year Morton (1968: 153-214) published a paper on the Hymenophyllaceae and recognized six genera in this family, reducing the other names to subgenera or sections of subgenera. All of our Taiwan species would fall either in the genera Hymenophyllum or Trichomanes. In this paper, following the description of each species, is given a description of the leaf anatomy as seen in cleared specimens.