Monographs Details:
Authority:

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

Dryopteridaceae
Description:

Species Description - Rhizome short, erect, 10-20 mm thick (excluding scales), at apex with a dense tuft of thin, glossy, pale orange-brown, tortous, linear-attenuate scales 6-13 mm long, with irregularly toothed margins. Sterile fronds loosely clustered, spreading, 15-35(-55) cm long; stipes nearly absent; phyllopodia not evident; blades narrowly oblanceolate, 2-4(-5) cm broad above the middle, acuminate at apex, long-attenuate at base, clothed throughout with spreading, brownish, hairlike scales 1-2 mm long; veins rather widely spaced, simple or once-forked, the enlarged tips impinging on the slightly thickened margins; tissue thinly herbaceous, translucent. Fertile fronds uncommon, similar to the sterile ones but very much smaller and narrower.

Discussion:

Fig. 89.

Basionym. Acrostichum apodum Kaulfuss, Enum. filic. 59. 1824.

Type. Ryan, from Montserrat {Herb. Vahl, C, not seen).

Syn. Acrostichum platyneuron Fee, Mem. foug. 2: 43, t. 4, fig. 1. 1845, not Linnaeus, 1753. (Type. Linden 2156, from Santiago, Cuba, P, not seen; isotype NY.)

Elaphoglossum platyneuron T. Moore, Index fil. 13. 1857.

Distribution:

West Indies| Central America| South America|