Trichomanes ovale (E.Fourn.) Wess.Boer
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Authority
Proctor, George R. 1989. Ferns of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 53: 1-389.
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Family
Hymenophyllaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Plants usually densely aggregated, forming mats; rhizome filiform, bearing scattered minute brown rhizoids. Fronds round, oval, broadly elliptic, obovate, or sometimes lanceolate, the margin entire or slightly crenate, the short-stipitate base narrowly to broadly cuneate or sometimes rounded; blades glabrous except for a few scattered geminate or stellate hairs along margin. Fertile blades costate (sterile ones costate or with flabellate venation), the costa extending to the single apical sorus; lateral veins pinnately arranged, a few of them nonconnected in the thinly membranous tissue. Sori usually solitary (rarely 2 or 3); involucres narrowly obconic, 1-1.5 mm long, immersed at base, the distal portion exserted and narrowly winged, at apex expanded in two rounded, usually erect lips, these with dark brown marginal zone about two cells wide.
Distribution and Ecology - General Distribution. Greater Antilles, and sporadically in continental tropical America; recorded from Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Venezuela, and Brazil. As this is one ofthe smallest of all known fems, it is easily overlooked, and may have a more general distribution than the records indicate. Distribution in Puerto Rico. Chiefly known from the Siena de Luquillo, with a single disjunct collection from the Rio Abajo State Forest. Recorded from Arecibo and Rio Grande. Habitat. O n tmnks and exposed roots of large trees in wet forest at middle elevations (330-550 m), rare or overlooked.
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Discussion
Basionym. Didymoglossum ovale Foumier, Bull. Soc. Bot. France 19: 240. 1872.
Type. Fendler 25, from Tovar, Venezuela (P, isotypes B, GH, etc.).
Syn. Trichomanes solitarium Jenman, Gard. Chron. ser. 3, 16: 592. 1894. (Type. Syme s.n. (J.P 491), from the Ugly River, parish of St. Mary, Jamaica, IJ, isotype K.)