Selaginella armata Baker

  • Authority

    Proctor, George R. 1989. Ferns of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 53: 1-389.

  • Family

    Selaginellaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Selaginella armata Baker

  • Description

    Species Description - Plants laxly imbricate, forming a thin soft mat. Main stems prostrate, filiform, 3-11 cm long, producing short capillary rhizophores at all the nodes. Branches subdistant, short (mostly 0.5-1.5 cm long), simple, forked, or with 2-3 short altemate divisions. Lateral leaves of the main stem and principal branches spreading, apart or contiguous, broadly ovate-oblong, 1.2-1.7 mm long, 1-1.2 mm broad, acutish and mucronulate at apex, unequally rounded at base, costate abaxially and with sclerotic, ciliate margins; leaf tissue membranous-pellucid, distantly scleroticstriate beneath. Median leaves broadly lanceolate, 1-1.5 mm long, straight, acuminate and long-aristate. Strobiles short, 1.5-4 mm long, not sharply differentiated; sporophylls obliquely spreading, deltate-ovate, up to 1.5 mm long, acuminate, sharply carinate, ciliolate.

  • Discussion

    Type. Wright 3908, from Cuba (K, isotypes BM, N Y , US).

    Syn. Selaginella patula of Sauvalle, Anales Acad. Ci. Med. Habana 8: 413. 1872, not Spring, 1843.

    Selaginella rotundifolia of Sauvalle, loc. cit., 1872, not Spring, 1843.

    Selaginella rhodospora Baker, J. Bot. 22: 111. 1884. (Type. Wright 1824, from Oriente, Cuba, K, isotype BM.)

    Selaginella consimilis Baker, J. Bot. 23: 179. 1885. (Type. Wright 3907, from Cuba, K, isotype BM.) Selaginella plagiochila of Krug & Urban, Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 24: 150. 1897, in part (as to Puerto Rican specimens), not Baker, 1883; Maxon, Sci. Surv. Porto Rico & Virgin Is. 6: 518. 1926.

  • Distribution

    General Distribution. Greater Antilles.