Trichomanes polypodioides L.

  • Authority

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

  • Family

    Hymenophyllaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Trichomanes polypodioides L.

  • Description

    Species Description - Rhizome filiform, wide-creeping, loosely clothed with yellowish-brown, hairlike rhizoids. Fronds distant, pendent, 5-15(-25) cm long, with stipes much shorter than the blades; stipes mostly 0.5-1.5 cm long, abruptly broad-winged toward distal end. Blades oblong-linear or linear-lanceolate, 1-3.5 cm broad, coarsely sinuate-lobate to deeply pinnatifid, bearing flattened, yellow brown, forked, stellate, or sometimes bistellate hairs on rhachis, veins, and margins; similar hairs also on stipe; veins also bearing very minute resinous clavate glands abaxially. Segments 11-20 pairs, oblique, mostly oblong, 3-7 mm broad, pinnately veined, broadly joined at base by a wing 1.2-2 mm wide on either side of rhachis; margins sinuate; tissue pale green, thinly membranous, glabrous and translucent. Sori solitary or few at the ends of segments chiefly toward distal end of blade, immersed; involucres urceolate with abmptly expanded apex, the mouth neither 2-lipped nor dark-margined; receptacle longexserted; spores subglobose, coarsely tuberculate.

  • Discussion

    Neotype. Proctor 19068, from Montsenat (A, isoneotype US). This was designated (Fl. Lesser Ant. 2: 92. 1977) because there is no Linnaean specimen or collateral reference that can serve to typify this species.

    Syn. Trichomanes sinuosum L. C. Richard ex Willdenow in Linnaeus, Sp. pl. 5: 502. 1810. (Type. L. C. Richard ?, from Guadeloupe, Herb. Willd. 20I9I, B.)

    Ptilophyllum sinuosum (L. C. Richard ex Willdenow) Prantl, Unters. Morph. Gefasskrypt. 1: 47. 1875.

  • Distribution

    General Distribution. Greater and Lesser Antilles, Trinidad, and continental tropical America from southem Mexico to Paraguay, Uruguay, and Brazil. Distribution in Puerto Rico. Known chiefly from higher parts of the Siena de Luquillo and Cordillera Central; recorded from Adjuntas, Bayamon, Guaynabo, Jayuya, Juana Diaz, Naguabo, Orocovis, Ponce, and Rio Grande. Habitat. Mossy tree-trunks (chiefly trunks of tree-fems), sometimes on wet rocks or deeply shaded sides of boulders, at middle to high el

    West Indies| Trinidad and Tobago South America| South America|