Polypodium dissimile L.

  • Authority

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

  • Family

    Polypodiaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Polypodium dissimile L.

  • Description

    Species Description - Rhizome short-creeping, 8-14 cm thick (excluding scales), densely clothed with dark graybrown, iridescent-clathrate scales 5-12 mm long, these deltate-ovate at base, abruptly contracted to a filiform, hair-tipped apex. Fronds few (often one), pendent, 25-115 cm long; stipes much shorter than the blades, 6-20 cm long, yellowishbrown, densely pubemlous with short pluricellular hairs. Blades oblong or deltate-lanceolate, 20-100 cm long, 10-28 cm broad at or near base, pinnatisect or fully pinnate at the truncate base, gradually tapering to the pinnatifid, acuminate apex; rhachis, costae, and tissue pubescent throughout with whitish, pluricellular hairs, more densely so on abaxial side; pinnae subopposite, ligulate-falcate, usually 13-20 mm broad, acutish to acuminate at apex, mostly equilaterally adnate to rhachis at base, or the lower ones somewhat cordate-clasping, the margins entire; primary veins somewhat distinct and prominulous, the indistinct secondary (connecting) veins obliquely arching and forming a series of 2-4 areoles between costa and margin of pinna, each areole with a single included, free, excunent veinlet; tissue light green, firmly herbaceous but slightly flaccid. Sori round, b o m e on the tips of free veinlets in mostly two or three rows between costa and margin; paraphyses lacking; sporangia glabrous.

  • Discussion

    Type. P. Browne, from Jamaica {LINN 1251.24).

    Syn. Polypodium chnoodes Sprengel, Neue Entd. 3: 6. 1822. (Type. Kohaut, Sieber Exsicc. (no. not cited), from Martinique, LZ, destroyed, not seen.)

    Marginaria chnoodes (Sprengel) K. Presl, Tent. pterid. 189. 1836.

    Goniophlebium dissimile (Linnaeus) J. Smith, J. Bot. (Hooker) 4: 57. 1841.

    Goniophlebium chnoodes (Sprengel) Fee, Mem. foug. 5:255. 1852.

  • Distribution

    General Distribution. Greater and Lesser Antilles,

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