Monographs Details:
Authority:

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

Aspleniaceae
Description:

Species Description - Rhizome short, erect, 3-5 mm thick, at apex bearing a tuft of iridescent brown, subclathrate, narrowly deltate-attenuate scales 4-6 mm long. Fronds few, erect or spreading, glabrous throughout, 10-42 cm long; stipes dull greenish or light brown, shorter than the blades, 3-17 cm long, narrowly green-marginate. Blades narrowly oblong, abruptly caudate-acuminate at apex, truncate at base; rhachis narrowly green-winged; pinnae altemate, short-stalked, strongly inequilateral at base, excavate or narrowly cuneate on basiscopic side, subauriculate or rounded-enlarged on acroscopic side, this part sometimes overlapping the rhachis, mostly 0.5-1 cm broad above the base, the margins coarsely and inegularly crenate-dentate; veins oblique, 1- to 2-forked, the tips not reaching the margins; tissue dark green, firm. Sori narrowly oblique, linear; indusium firm, opaque, with entire margin.

Distribution and Ecology - General Distribution. Greater Antilles, Guadeloupe, Trinidad, and widespread in continental tropical America. Often confused with A. hastatum Klotzsch ex Kunze. Distribution in Puerto Rico. Widely scattered in the Siena de Luquillo, Siena de Cayey, and Cordillera Central; recorded from Adjuntas, Cayey, Jayuya, Patillas, Ponce, Rio Grande, and Utuado. Habitat. On shaded mossy boulders and logs, or tenestrial in deep humus, in wet montane forest at middle to high elevations (470-1100 m), locally frequent.

Discussion:

Type. Freyreis, from Rio de San Francisco, Minas Gerais, Brazil (S, not seen; isotype B M, photo US).

Syn, Asplenium semicordatum Raddi, Pl. bras, nov, gen. 1:2)6,t. 52, fig. 1.1825. (Type, Raddi, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, isotypes FI, FI-WEBB, not seen.)

Aplenium fragrans Hooker, Icon, pl., t. 88. 1837, not Swartz, 1788.

Asplenium salicifolium var. auriculatum (Swartz) Proctor in Howard, R. Lesser Antill. 2: 321. 1977.