Notes on the Higher Level Classification of the Recent Ferns

A firm basis for the alignment of the leptosporangiate fern families, which by themselves are becoming increasingly understood and well-defined, is still lacking. In the treatment of the families given below, ideas about their affinites are presented; but as the family sequence is alphabetical, in accordance with the editorial rules for “The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants”, rather than being “natural”, it is very difficult to glean an overview of supposed family relationships from the present work. I therefore give a resume of what I think is the present state of knowledge (or, in many cases, ignorance) about family relationships in the leptosporangiates (Fig. 16). As the views expressed below are essentially my own, I have chosen the first person singular for stating them, in contrast to the style adopted elsewhere in the work.