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 - Tenestrial fems of small to very large size. Rhizomes erect or ascending (rarely elongate and creeping), densely clothed at apex with conspicuous scales, these attenuate or hairlike at the apex, and often with toothed or ciliate margins; similar but smaller scales also occur toward base of stipes. Blades 1-pinnate-pinnatifid to 4-pinnate or decompound, membranous in texture, catadromous, the blades often more or less deltate; vascular parts clothed on adaxial side with numerous short, articulate, pluricellular hairs, beneath usually with scales; aerophores lacking; ultimate divisions usually rounded or obtuse, the margins glabrous or ciliate, the veins all free, simple or branched, reaching the margins or not. Sori round, dorsal on veins or at their tips; indusium roundish-reniform and attached at the sinus, or sometimes absent; paraphyses absent; sporangia glabrous, with annulus of 14-16 cells; spores somewhat ellipsoid, monolete, the surface coarsely or finely echinate, or with parallel ridges having sharply erose margins, or saccate, or with longer inffated folds, or with winglike projections, etc.
Species Description - Tenestrial fems of small to very large size. Rhizomes erect or ascending (rarely elongate and creeping), densely clothed at apex with conspicuous scales, these attenuate or hairlike at the apex, and often with toothed or ciliate margins; similar but smaller scales also occur toward base of stipes. Blades 1-pinnate-pinnatifid to 4-pinnate or decompound, membranous in texture, catadromous, the blades often more or less deltate; vascular parts clothed on adaxial side with numerous short, articulate, pluricellular hairs, beneath usually with scales; aerophores lacking; ultimate divisions usually rounded or obtuse, the margins glabrous or ciliate, the veins all free, simple or branched, reaching the margins or not. Sori round, dorsal on veins or at their tips; indusium roundish-reniform and attached at the sinus, or sometimes absent; paraphyses absent; sporangia glabrous, with annulus of 14-16 cells; spores somewhat ellipsoid, monolete, the surface coarsely or finely echinate, or with parallel ridges having sharply erose margins, or saccate, or with longer inffated folds, or with winglike projections, etc.
Discussion:
Type. Species. Ctenitis distans (Brackenridge) Ching, based on Lastrea distans Brackenridge, of Brazil, equivalent to Aspidium ctenitis Link.
Basionym. Bryopteris subg. Ctenitis C. Christensen, Biol. Arb. til Eug. Warming 77. 1911.
A pantropical and temperate genus of at least 130 species in the broad sense, the majority found in tropical America. Three species occur in Puerto Rico, one of them representing an endemic variety. The generic name is derived from the Greek kteis, comb, from the supposed resemblance of the nanow pinna-lobes in the type species to the teeth of a comb.