Anogramma Link is a genus of about five species with annual sporophytes and potentially perennating gametophytes: A. leptophylla, A. chaerophylla, A. osteniana, A. lorentzii, and A. ascensionis. Anogramma caespitosa of east Africa and A. guatemalensis have been segregated from nearly cosmopolitan A. leptophylla, and A. novogaliciana from Jalisco, Mexico is said to resemble A. chaerophylla. Nucleotide sequences of rbcL were determined for all of these species (except A. ascensionis, which is thought to be extinct, and A. novogaliciana, material of which is being sought), including multiple accessions of A. leptophylla from diverse parts of its range. Also included were species of Pityrogramma (generally considered most closely related to Anogramma), other putatively taenitidoid genera, and Cosentinia vellea whose spore morphology is strikingly similar to that of A. leptophylla and unlike that of Cheilanthes in which it is often subsumed. Maximum parsimony cladistic analyses were used to test 1) the monophyly of Anogramma, 2) support for the proposed specific distinctness of A. guatemalensis and A. caespitosa, and 3) the asserted close (sister) relationship between Anogramma and Pityrogramma, and to infer the phylogenetic relationships among these genera. Results reveal that Anogramma in the traditional sense is polyphyletic. Anogramma guatemalensis and A. caespitosa nest within A. leptophylla. Pityrogramma is not sister to Anogramma as a whole but only to A. chaerophylla. Cosentinia vellea should not be subsumed within Cheilanthes. Anogramma osteniana is well separated from its traditional congeners. Neighbor joining analysis of an AFLP (Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism) data set inferred relationships among the A. leptophylla accessions, embedding A. guatemalensis in a New World clade and A. caespitosa in a separate Old World clade.

Key words: AFLP, Anogramma, Cosentinia, Pityrogramma, Pteridaceae, rbcL