Antrophyopsis gigantea (Bory) Rouhan, Boullet & Schuettp., 2021

Rouhan, Germinal, Boullet, Vincent, Field, Ashley & Schuettpelz, Eric, 2021, Three new combinations and one lectotypification of fern and lycophyte taxa from the French overseas territories, Phytotaxa 497 (1), pp. 54-56 : 54

Antrophyopsis gigantea (Bory) Rouhan, Boullet & Schuettp. , comb. nov.

Basionym: Antrophyum giganteum Bory (1833: 36)

Type:— Mauritius. Le Pouce, C. Bélanger s.n. (lectotype P [ P00483382 !], hic designatus; isolectotypes P [ P00483381 !], P [ P01482666 !]) .

Notes:—This species was not included in the study of vittarioid ferns by Schuettpelz et al. (2016) and its placement in the phylogeny has yet to be assessed. Nonetheless, it is morphologically most similar to Antrophyopsis boryana ( Willdenow 1810: 128) Schuettpelz (2016: 717) that was included in the molecular analysis and confirmed as belonging to Antrophyopsis ( Benedict 1907: 447) Schuettpelz (2016: 717) . It is distinguished from A. boryana by sessile, subelliptic to suboblanceolate fronds, but both share the generic characters, notably spherical apical cells of the soral paraphyses and ecostate laminae (i.e. lacking midribs). Although A. gigantea was described from Mauritius, it was never observed there again ( Badré 2008) and is today known only from La Reunion. As there are three sheets housed at P, we designated as lectotype the sheet with complete leaves given that the base of fronds is critical for distinguishing the species; also, the same sheet bears the more complete labels.