Monographs Details:
Authority:
Proctor, George R. 1989. Ferns of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 53: 1-389.
Proctor, George R. 1989. Ferns of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 53: 1-389.
Family:
Dryopteridaceae
Dryopteridaceae
Description:
Species Description - Rhizome creeping, woody, 9-15 mm thick (excluding stipe bases), densely clothed at apex with light- to medium-brown, narrowly lance-attenuate scales mostly 6-13 mm long, with more or less contorted, hairlike apex and distantly fibrillose-ciliate margins. Sterile fronds erect, (30-)45-70 cm long, with stipes shorter than the blades, (12-) 16-20 cm long, light brown, grooved on adaxial side, narrowly winged toward distal end, dotted with a few very minute appressed stellate scales, and also bearing a few larger, scattered, spreading, deciduous scales when young; phyllopodia black, ca. 1.5 cm long; blades oblong to narrowly elliptic, mostly 20-50 cm long, 4-9 cm broad, acute at apex, abruptly cuneate or shortdecurrent at base, bearing scattered, extremely minute, appressed stellate scales on both sides; veins 1- to 2-forked, sometimes a few rejoining at random in the tissue, all joined at the tips to a submarginal vein; tissue stiflf-coriaceous, opaque. Fertile fronds always smaller than the sterile ones, the stipes of more or less equal length, the blades mostly 13-18 cm long, ca. 2.5 cm broad, acute at apex, cuneate at base.
Species Description - Rhizome creeping, woody, 9-15 mm thick (excluding stipe bases), densely clothed at apex with light- to medium-brown, narrowly lance-attenuate scales mostly 6-13 mm long, with more or less contorted, hairlike apex and distantly fibrillose-ciliate margins. Sterile fronds erect, (30-)45-70 cm long, with stipes shorter than the blades, (12-) 16-20 cm long, light brown, grooved on adaxial side, narrowly winged toward distal end, dotted with a few very minute appressed stellate scales, and also bearing a few larger, scattered, spreading, deciduous scales when young; phyllopodia black, ca. 1.5 cm long; blades oblong to narrowly elliptic, mostly 20-50 cm long, 4-9 cm broad, acute at apex, abruptly cuneate or shortdecurrent at base, bearing scattered, extremely minute, appressed stellate scales on both sides; veins 1- to 2-forked, sometimes a few rejoining at random in the tissue, all joined at the tips to a submarginal vein; tissue stiflf-coriaceous, opaque. Fertile fronds always smaller than the sterile ones, the stipes of more or less equal length, the blades mostly 13-18 cm long, ca. 2.5 cm broad, acute at apex, cuneate at base.
Discussion:
Basionym. Acrostichum latifolium Swartz, Prodr. 128. 1788.
Type. Swartz, from Jamaica (S).
Distribution: