The genus Elaphoglossum is one of the largest and most complex of fern genera.It is composed of perhaps 600 species, which frequently are difficult to distinguish.The genus has not been afforded careful study in the past.As a result, some names have been misapplied and others not used at all, and sometimes new names have been made for old species.Consequently, much herbarium material is either misidentified or unidentified."Elaphoglossum is more in need of a taxonomical revision than other fern genera, all the more so as many species are imperfectly known or badly delimited in comparison with their allies."(Pichi Sermolli, 1968).Elaphoglossum is a remarkably uniform genus of mostly simple-bladed ferns with acrostichoid sori.The veins are free (with two exceptions), the rhizomes scaly, and the blades densely scaly to nearly glabrous.The taxonomy of the genus is based to some extent on frond form and rhizome habit, but more importantly on the scales of the rhizome and blade.Until now there has not been a useful treatment that conveniently breaks the large number of species into smaller, more coherent units.Modern keys have been made for a few areas, such as tropical Africa (Schelpe, 1969), Brazil (Alston, 1956a), Guatemala (Mickel, 1980b), Malaysia (Holttum, 1978), and India (Sledge, 1967), but these do not provide insight into treatment of the genus as a whole.The purpose of this paper is to take the first step in revising the genus by breaking it into infrageneric units that subsequently can be monographed.Even so, this treatment is provisional because a complete understanding of the genus can be had only after the species are better known.HISTORY OF THE GENUS Linnaeus (1753) described Elaphoglossum crinitum under Acrostichum, which included all ferns with sporangia covering the dorsal blade surface.Schott (1834) first proposed the name Elaphoglossum, but it was not formally described until later by John Smith (1841, p. 148), and was not widely accepted until the end of the The first broad treatment of the genus was prepared by Fee (1845) under Acrostichum.He divided the elaphoglossoids into two groups, Oligolepideae and Polylepideae.These in turn were subdivided on the basis of frond size and scale characters.Later, Fee (1852) used four primary groups without further subdivision:Oligolepideae, Polylepideae, Pilosellae, and Chromatolepideae.Moore (1857-1862) was the first to use the genus name Elaphoglossum extensively; he made many new combinations under it.He utilized a generic breakdown of Oligolepidum ("fronds naked, or with but few scales") and Polylepidum ("fronds clothed with numerous scales").Sodiro (1897, under Acrostichum) used more group names (Glabra, Setosa, Oligotrichia, Polytrichia, Squamosa,