Mickel, John T. & Smith, Alan R. 2004. The pteridophytes of Mexico. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 88: 1-1054.
Cyatheaceae
Genus Description - Terrestrial; stems erect, usually forming massive trunks to 20 m tall, 10 cm diam. (without the occasional mantle of wiry adventitious roots), scaly at apices; fronds large, to 4 m long; stipes stout, scaly, scales conform or marginate, concolorous to bicolorous, without dark apical setae, cells of the margins lightly to strongly different from those of the center in size, shape, and orientation; blades 2–3+-pinnate, chartaceous to coriaceous; axes with long, curved, acicular hairs adaxially, often with bullate scales abaxially, the rachises and costae rarely with spines; veins free, simple or forked; sori round, medial, with raised receptacles, indusia arising from beneath the sori and either completely enclosing them or forming cups or flat unequal-sided saucers, or absent; sporangia with slightly oblique annuli; spores tetrahedralglobose, 64 per sporangium; x=69.
Type: Cyathea arborea (L.) Sm. [=Polypodium arboreum L.].
Hemitelia R. Br., Prodr. 158. 1810. Type: Hemitelia multiflora (Sm.) Spreng. =Cyathea multiflora Sm. Trichipteris C. Presl in J. Presl & C. Presl, Delic. Prag. 1: 172. 1822. Type:Trichipteris excelsa C. Presl = T. corcovadensis (Raddi) Copel. = Cyathea corcovadensis (Raddi) Domin. (Additional synonymy in Barrington, 1978.) Sometimes treated as Trichopteris. For discussion of viewpoints of Trichipteris vs. Trichopteris, see Gastony (Amer. J. Bot. 66: 1258-1260. 1979), Morton (Amer. Fern J. 61: 142-143. 1971), and Lellinger (1987).
Cyathea is a genus of about 115 species, 8 in Mexico. The scaly tree ferns have been treated as a single genus (Holttum & Sen, 1962) and as six genera (R. Tryon, 1970). We are treating them here in four genera, following Lellinger (1987) and Moran (in Davidse et al., 1995).