Macrothelypteris torresiana (Gaudich.) Ching
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Authority
Proctor, George R. 1989. Ferns of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 53: 1-389.
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Family
Thelypteridaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Rhizome stout, short-creeping or ascending, densely clothed at the green apex with brown, linear-attenuate, ciliate scales, these up to 8 mm long. Fronds close, arching, variable in size, reaching 2 m in length but commonly fertile when very much smaller; stipes mostly 20-35 cm long (rarely to 75 cm), pale green and glaucous at first, becoming straw-colored, densely scaly toward base, the scales like those of rhizome apex, otherwise glabrate and minutely stipitate-glandular. Blades deltate-ovate to deltate-lanceolate, longer than the stipes, to 1.5 m long or longer, mostly 20-60 cm broad, long-acuminate, the apex pinnatifid; tissue thin, membranous, with veins 3-5 pairs in the ultimate divisions, simple or (when fertile) 1-forked; smallest fertile blades 2-pinnate- pinnatifid, the largest 3-pinnate-pinnatifid to 4-pinnate; rhachis 2-grooved on adaxial side, the grooves separated by a rounded, pubescent ridge, otherwise sparsely and minutely stipitateglandular; pinnae deltate-lanceolate or lanceolate, attenuate, short-stalked; ultimate divisions oblong-falcate or linear-oblong, mostly 1.5-2 mm broad, subentire to crenate-denticulate; costae narrowly green-winged; costules whitish shortpubescent adaxially, all vascular parts beneath bearing numerous long, colorless, pluricellular hairs. Sori medial; indusium minute, soon deciduous, the sorus usually appearing to lack an indusium; sporangia glabrous.
Distribution and Ecology - General Distribution. Tropical southeast Asia and islands of the southwest Pacific; now naturalized in southeastem United States, Bahamas (Crooked I.), Greater and Lesser Antilles, Trinidad, parts of South America, and doubtless elsewhere. Distribution in Puerto Rico. Of scattered distribution but will surely spread very widely; recorded so far from Arecibo, Lares, Las Marias, Naguabo, Salinas, Rio Grande, and Utuado. Habitat. Moist shady banks, especially in loose or disturbed soil, forest glades, partly-shaded hillsides, and banks of streams at rather low to middle elevations (160-800 m), sporadic and not yet common.]
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Discussion
Fig. 53.
Basionym. Polystichum torresianum Gaudichaud in Freycinet, Voy. Uranie 333. 1828.
Type. Gaudichaud, from the Mariannas Islands (G, as cited by Pichi-Sermolli, Webbia 24: 717. 1970; P, ace. to A. R. Smith, R. Chiapas 2: 234. 1981).
Syn. Aspidium uliginosum Kunze, Linnaea 20:6. 1847. (Type. Cult, at Leipzig from spores originating in Java, destroyed. Lectotype. A specimen at BR labelled 'Aspidium uliginosum mihi . . ." in the handwriting of Kunze, designated by Morton, 1973.)
Lastrea torresiana (Gaudichaud) Moore, Index fil. 86. 1858.
Bryopteris setigera of C. Christensen, Kongel. Danske Vidensk, Selsk, Naturvidensk, Math, Afti, ser. 5,6:16. 1920, not Cheilanthes setigera Blume, 1828.
Bryopteris uliginosa (Kunze) C. Christensen, Index filic. suppl. Ill: 100, 1934.
Thelypteris uliginosa (Kunze) Ching, Bull. Fan Mem. Inst. Biol. 6: 342. 1936.
Thelypteris torresiana (Gaudichaud) Alston, Lilloa30: 111. 1960.