Abstract: We examined collections of pteridophytes from Moorea and others of the Society Islands, as well as literature relevant to the pteridophytes of Polynesia. This resulted in a list of species known to occur on Moorea, along with a list of species reported for Moorea but lacking voucher specimens, and a list of species perhaps to be found on Moorea based on collections from nearby Tahiti and adjacent islands in the archipelago, at suitable elevations. We include habitat, locality, and appropriate taxonomic commentary for each known species. A new species in the family Psilotaceae, Tmesipteris gracilis Chinnock, is described from the Society and Marquesas Islands. We also include a discussion of pteridophyte collection history on Moorea and biogeographic notes for species on the island.

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OF THE SOCIETY ISLANDs, Tahiti is the best known and most heavily collected botanically. Moorea, Tahiti's closest neighbor and second highest island in the archipelago, has received relatively little attention, despite the fact that the stretch of water separating the two islands is only 14.5 km wide. Moorea also has sufficient elevation at points for there to be small areas of high-elevation cloud forest, the factor that makes Tahiti's high-elevation flora very rich. Moorea's highest peak, Mt. Tohiea (1207 m), as well as some of the lower peaks, are so treacherous that collection is difficult to impossible in some of the higher reaches of the island. Moorea also has the unique plant habitat of reef islands (motu), one of which served as the site for Joseph Banks' observations of the transit of Venus on the first voyage of Captain Cook.

Relatively little has been published on the pteridophyte flora of the Society Islands. Copeland's Pteridophytes of the Society Islands (1932) is the most comprehensive but contains relatively little information on range. Furthermore, taxonomic revisions over the past 70 yrs have rendered that work out of date. Maxon's Report upon a collection of ferns from Tahiti (1924) is cursory and deals only with one collecting trip to Tahiti. The pteridophyte section of Brown's Flora of southeastern Polynesia (1931-1935) is brief and barely touches the Society Island flora. Drake del Castillo's Flore de la Polyndsie Francaise (1893) is quite detailed but is also nearly useless because of numerous nomenclatural and taxonomic changes; moreover, Drake del Castillo himself never actually visited French Polynesia. Robert Robertson's Catalogue des plantes vasculaires de la Polynesie Francaise (1952) serves as a checklist compilation of Copeland (1932) and Drake del Castillo (1893) but contains scant new information.

The presence of the University of California at Berkeley's Richard B. Gump South Pacific Biological Research Station on Moorea has dramatically increased the number of plant collections on Moorea in recent years. These recent collections, coupled with a few important collections in the past, have made it possible to compile a list of pteridophytes known to be on Moorea. This list contains 72 species known with certainty from Moorea. In contrast, Tahiti has roughly 200 species of pteridophytes, mostly due to its higher elevation, nearly 2300...