Trichomanes scandens L.

  • Authority

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

  • Family

    Hymenophyllaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Trichomanes scandens L.

  • Description

    Species Description - Rhizome sinuous, wide-creeping, woody, 1-2 mm in diam., clothed with stiff, curved, castaneous, pluricellular hairs, these deciduous with age. Fronds arcuate-spreading, mostly 20-40 (-50) cm long; stipes mostly Va to Vi as long as the blades, slender, terete, thinly clothed with oblique msty hairs. Blades oblong-lanceolate to broadly ovate-oblong, 15-40 cm long, 8-25 cm broad, 3-pinnate-pinnatifid; rhachis and primary costae terete, the secondary costae narrowly winged; all vascular parts as well as margins freely clothed with long, very slender, rusty septate hairs; pinnae trapeziform-oblong to obliquely elongate-deltate from an unequal, short-stalked base, long-acuminate at apex; primary pinnules oblique, the acroscopic basal ones the largest; secondary pinnules oblique, subdistant, narrowly joined, the larger ones rhombic-lanceolate, obliquely lobed or pinnatifid; tissue light green, delicately membranous and translucent, Sori numerous; involucre funnelform, immersed, only the abruptly expanded entire apex free; receptacles filiform, becoming long-exserted.

  • Discussion

    Lectotype. Plumier, Traite foug. Amer., t. 93, based on a plant from south of Leogane, Haiti.

    Syn. Trichomanes lindenii K. Presl, Epimel. bot. 11, t. 6. 1849 (1851). (Type. Linden 1675, from the Blue Mts., Jamaica, K.)

  • Distribution

    General Distribution. Greater Antilles.