Extant taxa
The PCC portal’s taxonomic thesaurus is populated with the names and taxonomy of extant pteridophytes from World Ferns, generously supplied to PCC by the author, Michael Hassler. This list is comprehensive, covering every known species of living pteridophyte, as well as the great majority of the synonymous names. As such it is an invaluable resource that allows us to present a single coherent classification for the users of the portal, regardless of which taxonomy a particular contributing instution uses, or what name is on a given specimen.
The Word Fern classification follows that of the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group, with some small exceptions. We will continue to update our classification to reflect changes in taxonomic opinion as well as the description of new species, in coordination with World Ferns.
Please let us know if you have any comments on our classification, or if you discover any errors.
Fossil taxa
Unfortunately, a comprehensive taxonomic summary, comparable to World Ferns, is not available for the rich array of fossil pteridophytes.