Proctor, George R. 1989. Ferns of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 53: 1-389.
Polypodiaceae
Species Description - Rhizome creeping, cylindric, 8-12 mm thick, covered with dark brown, subclathrate, ovateacuminate or -attenuate scales 3-6 mm long, these peltately attached, mostly appressed but with spreading tips, the margins pale and inegular or somewhat erose. Fronds few, close or widely spaced, arching or pendent, 22-100 cm long; stipes usually much shorter than the blades, 8-35 cm long, straw-colored to reddish-brown, glabrous. Blades ovate or ovate-oblong, pinnate, 14-65 cm long, 8-40 cm broad, ending abruptly in a terminal pinna or segment similar to the lateral ones, slightly narrowed at base; pinnae mostly 5-13 pairs, distant, narrowly to broadly ligulate or narrowly lanceolate, obtuse to long-acuminate at apex, the lowest ones rounded to broadly cuneate at the subsessile base, the more distal ones constricted but adnate at base; veins prominulous on both sides, the primary ones oblique at a 40-50° angle, the secondary (connecting) ones obliquely arching and forming a series of 3-6 areoles between costa and margin, these very regular in size and shape, each containing a single free excunent veinlet; tissue dull or dark green, thinly papery to subcoriaceous. Sori round, borne on the tips of free veinlets in 1-3 regular rows on either size of the costa, each slightly sunken in a shallow pit of the frond tissue, marked on adaxial side by a low protuberance.
Distribution and Ecology - General Distribution. Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Tortola, Lesser Antilles, Trinidad, and continental tropical America from southem Mexico to Brazil and Bolivia. Distribution in Puerto Rico. Known from a single specimen. Rio Grande: Sierra de Luquillo, El Verde, 28 Sep 1941, Blomquist 11882 (US). Virgin Islands. Tortola, upper slopes of Sage Mt., 24 Apr 1984, Proctor 40498 (SJ, US). Habitat. The Puerto Rican plant was collected on rock near base ofa waterfall at ca. 400-500 m elevation; it is a very depauperate plant. The Tortola material grew as an epiphyte high on large trees in moist primary forest at ca. 520 m elevation; the species is quite frequent at this locality.
Type. Herb. Thunberg, from an unknown locality (UPS, not seen).
Syn. Polypodium brasiliense Poiret in Lamarck, Encycl. 5: 525. 1804. (Lectotype. Sloane, Nat. Hist. Jamaica 1: /. 40, chosen by Proctor, 1985, p. 531.)
Polypodium neriifolium Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew. 1: 14, t. 15. 1804. (Type. ''Ex Herbar. Breynii,'' from an unknown locality, not seen; the plate is unmistakable.)
Polypodium attenuatum Humboldt & Bonpland ex Willdenow in Linnaeus, Sp. pl. 5: 191. 1810. (Type. Humboldt, from Caracas, Venezuela, Herb. Willd. 19683 {sheets I & 2), B.)
Goniophlebium attenuatum (Humboldt & Bonpland ex Willdenow) K. Presl, Tent, pterid. 186. 1836.
Goniophlebium neriifolium (Schkuhr) Hooker, Gen. fil., t. 70B. 1841.
Polypodium brasiliense var. attenuatum (Humboldt & Bonpland ex Willdenow) Baker in Martius, R. bras. 1(2): 524. 1870.
Polypodium brasiliense var. neriifolium (Schkuhr) Baker in Martius, ibid.
Goniophlebium brasilianum (Poiret) Farwell, Amer. Midi. Naturalist 12: 295. 1931.
Goniophlebium triseriale (Swartz) Pichi-Sermolli, Webbia 31: 248. 1977.