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:
Nephrolepidaceae
Nephrolepidaceae
Description:
Species Description - Plants terrestrial or occasionally epiphytic. Rhizome short, suberect, concealed by the stout stipe bases, the apex clothed with a dense tuft of narrowly lance-attenuate, glabrous, light orange-brown scales up to 8 mm long and ca. 0.8 mm broad above the base, terminating in a long hairlike apex. Fronds closely clustered, suberect or spreading, up to 2.5 m long (but usually much less), the stipes much shorter than the blades (mostly 6-20 cm long), deciduously fibrillosescaly, the scales spreading, linear-filiform, concolorous, pale orange-brown, basally attached. Blades linear, mostly 50-100(-200) cm long, 6-14 cm broad near the middle, slightly narrowed toward the base, the apex apparently of indeterminate growth; rhachis light brown, deciduously fibrillose-scaly like the stipe, the scales glabrous; pinnae numerous, close, narrowly oblong or narrowly deltate-oblong and subfalcate, 3-7 cm long, 0.8-1.3 cm broad at the middle, acutish to subacuminate at apex, subcordate and obtusely auriculate at base, the auricle (on acroscopic side) often overlapping the rhachis, the margins bluntly serrulate to lightly crenate; tissue deciduously fibrillose or else apparently glabrate; veins 1 - or 2-forked. Sori supramedial, rather close; indusium variable, orbicular-cordate to subreniform, the sinus usually open and U-shaped.
Species Description - Plants terrestrial or occasionally epiphytic. Rhizome short, suberect, concealed by the stout stipe bases, the apex clothed with a dense tuft of narrowly lance-attenuate, glabrous, light orange-brown scales up to 8 mm long and ca. 0.8 mm broad above the base, terminating in a long hairlike apex. Fronds closely clustered, suberect or spreading, up to 2.5 m long (but usually much less), the stipes much shorter than the blades (mostly 6-20 cm long), deciduously fibrillosescaly, the scales spreading, linear-filiform, concolorous, pale orange-brown, basally attached. Blades linear, mostly 50-100(-200) cm long, 6-14 cm broad near the middle, slightly narrowed toward the base, the apex apparently of indeterminate growth; rhachis light brown, deciduously fibrillose-scaly like the stipe, the scales glabrous; pinnae numerous, close, narrowly oblong or narrowly deltate-oblong and subfalcate, 3-7 cm long, 0.8-1.3 cm broad at the middle, acutish to subacuminate at apex, subcordate and obtusely auriculate at base, the auricle (on acroscopic side) often overlapping the rhachis, the margins bluntly serrulate to lightly crenate; tissue deciduously fibrillose or else apparently glabrate; veins 1 - or 2-forked. Sori supramedial, rather close; indusium variable, orbicular-cordate to subreniform, the sinus usually open and U-shaped.
Discussion:
Basionym. Polypodium exaltatum Linnaeus, Syst. nated. 10, 2: 1326. 1759.
Type. Sloane, Nat. Hist. Jamaica 1: t. 31, which represents a plant collected in Jamaica by "Sir Arthur Rawdon's Gardener" {James Harlow).
Syn. Aspidium exaltatum (Linnaeus) Swartz, J. Bot. (Schrader) 1800(2): 32. 1802.
Nephrodium exaltatum (Linnaeus) R. Brown, Prodr. 148. 1810.
Distribution:
United States of America North America| Bahamas South America| Mexico North America|
United States of America North America| Bahamas South America| Mexico North America|